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was not how i felt on my first day clean, i was elated because i once again believed i had got away with using and that the cover of a fellowship camp-out, would allow me to **look** like i was doing this recovery gig, for at least another month. i arrogantly believed that after three days, i would be able to pass the test the justice system made me take and instead of using the additional twenty-four hours i had been granted, i marched in and promptly failed to provide a “clean” sample. when i received the news of my “results” i was pissed off and ready to bolt. when given the opportunity to choose between incarceration at a state facility or enforced “sobriety,” and giving up twelve weekends of my life, i chose this path, because it seemed like the “easier, softer way.” there have been many times, especially in the first eighteen months of my clean time, when i regretted making that decision. today, however, i am grateful i naively accepted that this way was better than prison.
today, i am grateful for that decision based on self-interest and my brittle reaction to the threat of becoming a ward of the state, led me to where i am today. things may not be perfect, the pandemic has severely clipped my “social wings,” but when i consider the alternative, based on some of my peers, i am quite certain that i would have been one of those, who could stay clean for a minute, while i looked over my shoulder, waiting for the next shoe to drop, and once again find myself behind bars and wondering why the cops, judges and probation officers were “picking on me.”
moving into the here and now. it is kind of fun thinking about “what was” and “what might have been.” the truth is, the “what is,” is much more to my liking. i am a bit more flexible these days and even when the political climate and the pandemic, weigh me down, i can remember that i am lucky to even be here, in a warm house, a full belly and in the acre of my friends, family, peers and my spouse; none of whom would have given me one iota of anything, had i walked that other road, when given the choice. i CHOOSE to stay clean today, because i can see the results. i do not need to manufacture my misery in the attempt to find a loophole, nor do i need a committee to consider what wrongs i did today and how to address them, in near real-time. i GET to do this gig and i CHOOSE to make this the easier, softer way,. by living a program, just for today.

∞ DT ∞