Blog entry for:

spiritual hole, is not something i ever thought i needed when i was **sentenced** to recovery. in fact, i did not even know i had a void to be filled. part of that was the life style, which allowed me to get high, more than once a day. part of it was the denial that i was using to fill an emptiness within. nevertheless, early recovery and even in my early days of “membership” i was far from convinced that i desired or needed a spiritual path to deal with addiction. my journey to THE spiritual path i follow today was certainly dark and twisted. more than once, i was tempted to give up, settle for what i thought was “normal” and play lip service to a spiritual path that was not mine, in short using what i though was the consensus HIGHER POWER, all the while gritting my teeth and holding my nose as i chose the least repugnant path. unconditional surrender in that sense, meant giving up on finding what worked for me and settling for second or even third best.
as all of the above demonstrates, my path to this place in my recovery, one in which i do know and practice unconditional surrender to addiction and gratefully place that into the care of the POWER that fuels my recovery, is not a common story, or at least i have yet to hear it repeated anywhere close to verbatim. if not for my stubborn willfulness, to stay clean, i would have joined the many who find that they are not getting what they need from the fellowship that has given me the FREEDOM, to be here and do this, just for today. it goes to my case against this life, if it is not working and i am, not getting any better, why stick around. of course there is a caveat to that statement: IF i am doing everything in my power to live the program as it has come down to me from those who have walked this path before me. it was that caveat that kept me coming back, because i WOULD not settle for a second-rate HIGHER POWER.
today, i know that the void may still exists and that i can fill it with service work, accolades from my friends and peers, money, success or fulfilling equal relationships based on equality rather than power. i rarely feel that emptiness these days, which i attribute to the spiritual path that has become mine. i know that i am an addict, and i also know that i am powerless over addiction. i allow the POWER that fuels my recovery to “care” for by paying attention to the world around me. i make my plans and when i am on the top of my game, do not plan the outcomes. i know that this life, such as it is right here and right now is a gift that i NEED to cherish and am pretty sure it is not some sort of dream world in the mind of deteriorating, comatose patient in a long-term care facility, that did not survive one of hid near overdoses unscathed. as a result, i think i will get up and get out, to get my miles in, as i take responsibility to be fitter and healthier than i once was, just for today.

∞ DT ∞