Some memes

on this heavily front-loaded Saturday morning, getting around to putting down in words what i felt several hours ago, is what feels as if it is the next right thing to do. for me, the denial of my desperation, as i was being ripped form the life i was surviving, was just part of my whole resistance package, just as one group of politically motivated individuals are screaming about how COVID-19 is a hoax to get a sitting president out of office, so i was opaque to what was really going on. i fantasized about the day i could freely use once more and when i could return to the underwhelming life, i found so attractive. just as Forty-Five seems to be doing, i lied, manipulated, obfuscated and when busted bullied the living shit out of my critics. i was marking my time, all the while, my desperation was growing inside and beginning to reach a level that might have driven me to using, if only i had known way back when that my consequences would have been very mild and limited. i was fortunate my naivete and fear kept me clean, until i could finally feel my desperation and do something different
what brought on all this trip down memory lane was listening to a peer at my home group share this morning. at eleven months clean, he is far more willing and has a greater desire than i did, when i was a month short of a year clean. what i heard was the willingness to commit to a new way of living and what i had, way back the, was the DESIRE to get my ass out of the shit-hole i had put myself in. this is the place where i wonder how different things would have turned out, had i the DESIRE to stay clean when i was eleven months clean. the fact, i will never know, because that was not my path to where i am today. my path had to go through that basement apartment in New Jersey, after watching a taping of the David Letterman show, with a sack of one of my favorite things, screaming my name. finally, desperation bullied me into accepting the reality that i was not winning any new friend, influencing people or getting any closer to having a real life.
as i have started to unravel the lies that have kept me sick for so long, i can see that my identity was tied up in being able to consume mass-quantities and remain on my feet. the resistance i had to the recovery process was my attempt to salvage that savage identity. self-esteem and self-worth was tied to bigger and better. i took a strange pride in never having an overdose, even though i took it to the edge, just about every time i used. the first one, had to be the biggest, because after that…
and so my story continues, i am finding the ways and means to stop tying my identity to what i do and say, and say and do, as i really am. today, i am certain i am an addict, who cannot stay clean without some external POWER. my service, or lack thereof, to my fellowship is not something i use to build my esteem or to make myself “feel” different, it what i do to repay the debt i owe to my predecessors and those who happen to be following in my footsteps. how my peers find their worth or define the identity is not my bidness and just for today, i think i will allow them to find their own path.

∞ DT ∞