Blog entry for:

quite honestly i know a whole lot about humiliation and hiding who i am under a ginormous pile of spiritual camouflage. i am learning about what being humble means in terms of the recovery life i am living. i may say all sorts of things about how i want the world to see me, for who i really am, but one of my greatest fears, is that i will be seen for who i am, and found quite lacking in any of the attributes or spiritual principles that i espouse. i am, after all, the greatest judge of who i think i am and quite well-versed in projecting that everyone else, sees me in the exact same way. the reading this morning, took me down another path, and although my FEAR is still there and the judge, jury and executioner in my head are still alive active, i can let go of what and who i “think” i am and move on.
one thing that popped off the stack this morning, was memories of me stealing from an employer. my justification for taking the stuff i did, was that i was “worth” more than i was being paid and hence, entitled to take what i needed to make up the difference. when the reality of me taking from the small business owner who trusted me, started to set in and the rationalizations failed to assuage what the tiny bit of conscience that i still possessed, i could always get high and <BOOM> like magic even that gnawing bit of discomfort was gone. that same attitude pervaded all my “shopping” activities and i became quite accomplished at getting something for nothing, over the course of my using career. i did a fairly good job hiding that part of me from the world in general and that became the template of presenting a person, who i was not.
as those memories floated off the stack and faded into the quiet, what i felt was remorse and a bit of determination to be better than that today. i know that being a thief is pretty minor on the scale of what my peers and i did while in active addiction. going to that relative scale, allows me to dismiss my guilt and feel better about who i was and could be again. this addict needs to be reminded that how he lives his life, in the here and now, is a function of how well he lives and active program of recovery. i can wail, whine and gnash my teeth about all of that, or as i choose to do today, find a new manner in which to live and be okay knowing that, just for today, i will not take what is not mine. those days are gone forever, over a long time ago, just for today.

∞ DT ∞