Blog entry for:

if one looks up the term recovery in a dictionary, one is apt to discover that one definition is: a restoration to a previous state. when i consider my spiritual state when i was in active addiction or when i got clean, i have no DESIRE to be restored to either of those states of being., spiritually or emotionally. the reading this morning speaks of a process that allows me to achieve a spiritual state hitherto unknown and destined to take the place of the mudshark in my mythology, to steal a line from Mr Frank Zappa. i am currently not preparing to work STEP FIVE, so it would be easy to dismiss this reading as not applicable to me, when in fact it contains elements of what i may need to hear this morning.
before i get to down to the nitty gritty, a quick shout out is called for:

Chuck C
Congrats on Thirty-Three (33) years clean.

this morning as i get on about thinking about my spiritual recovery process, some of what was shared by my peers in the meeting i attended yesterday, echoes in my mind. one of them spoke of using a process that singled out specific substances and behaviors to “work on.”
there is nothing more distressing to me than thinking about ripping apart my recovery process, to concentrate on one aspect or another of my addiction. for this addict, when i came to recovery, i lived a fragmented and compartmentalized life, with walls of steel between each of the various aspects of who i was. when linkages or leakages occurred, i was distraught and in a DEFCON 5 mode to minimize the damage. living as a “whole” is a whole lot easier than trying to hold the pieces together. when i merrily trip back to those early days, one of the most attractive “features” of the program that has become my life, was the fact that it it was a one-stop shop for treating all that i was and i am. i never did fit in that fellowship where a single substance was the focus, and if i had remained, i am certain that i would have been using a very long time ago.
my life as it is today, is precious to me. i know that this life is a gift that arises out of me, learning how to live a program of recovery. perhaps the spiritual state i am attempting to restore, is the one i was born with, before i learned to discern what others felt and thought about me and i could revel in just being me. i am certainly much closer to that “pure” state than i have been in decades and maybe it is not really something i need to aspire to achieve. maybe, just maybe, i need to do the work and allow the POWER that fuels my recovery to restore me to a state that i NEED to be restored to, today. interesting thought and one i will run with, as i am running this morning.

∞ DT ∞