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for me anyhow, is about taking responsibility for my life and learning how to stop telling the **stories** that keep me sick. there are time when i would love to shift that burden on to my sponsor*s shoulders and follow his direction, but in the long run, what would i learn? that question is not rhetorical at all and the answer for this addict is that once again, i could avoid taking the blame for not making yet another decision, it would all be the fault of someone else. as i stay clean, learning how to detect my own bullshit, is a skill that my sponse has more than “forced” me into doing, by not giving me the answer that i am quite sure he saw. i apply this same technique with the men i sponsor, teaching them how to fish, rather than spoon-feeding them what i think. i believe that is one of the greatest gifts that my sponse has given me, the ability to think critically about what i am doing, and make the corrections i need to make in real-time. i could not imagine what my life would be like if i had to call him and wait for direction, on how to correct the wrongs i do on a daily basis. i think that is why the literature calls the TENTH STEP a “personal” inventory and not an inventory by committee.
enough of the fringe lunatic stuff. when i start to look at how others work their program, it is amazing how “by the book” i actually am, with myself and with the men who call me their sponsor. my recovery program is not some sort of “mix and match” program, where i take from more than one TWELVE STEP fellowships, because they are “all the same.” i do not even admire my peers who do that, nor do i feel jealousy or envy for how their programs work. i have been the “defender of the faith” rooting out heresy and launching inquisitions against those who dare to utter anything that is outside of the fellowship that is my home. my work in that respect may not be done, but this addict is certainly done burning those “witches” at the stake. what i feel today, is a sense of sadness when i see one of my peers stuck in the substance abuse part of a recovery program. it may have been my toxic relationship with drugs that brought me to the doors of recovery, but it is my DESIRE to be a better person, through this process, that keeps me here. i may be a member of the No Matter What Club, but that is far from what my focus is today, as if long-term abstinence was a measure of success, i would be long gone.
moving into reality this morning, i am grateful that i can think for myself and that i can help teach the men who call me their sponsor, to think for themselves. i may be far from perfect and still dwell in my own cesspool of lies and bullshit, but when it gets deep enough, i can ask for the hand of a friend, a peer or my sponse to direct me how to dig myself out. today, i work the program that was handed down to me and am grateful that this simple program continues to work in my life.

∞ DT ∞