Blog entry for:

for my decision to finally let go of my reservations and accept that maybe, just maybe, i was an addict and i might benefit from nurturing a desire to stop using, just for today. the sad truth is that it took about eighteen months of abstinence, some risky behavior and my fear of the consequences of my relapse that drove me to that point in my life.
i, like many of my peers, lived in a fantasy world fueled by denial of what addiction was and how it affected me. way back then, i believed it was all about using drugs and if i just did not use, things would get better. things did get better, i had more money to spend, i developed the ambition to return to school and complete my degree, i was becoming a trusted member of society as the judicial shackles loosened up and i was feeling good about where i might be heading. my plan was coming to fruition, and all i needed to do was to stay clean for a bit longer and i would be free to go back to a life of using. all that came to a screaming halt, when i realized that the unstoppable force of addiction, started to affect the immovable object of my desire to get off paper. after days of doing risky shit, i finally found myself in a room with a using buddy and a sack of one of my “go to” substances. i got home clean, passed my UA and went to a meeting and asked a member to be my sponsor. it was then and there, and not a moment sooner, i finally had developed the desire not to use.
<take two> i use this particular story to illustrate the point that i am far from a spiritual giant, or a model of the recovering addict, no matter what the legend is in my own mind. it illustrates that it often takes this addict a very long time to let go of something and accept what is right in front of him. another case in point, was that it took fifteen years to come to my spiritual path, even though i knew quite early on, what it would be. i was a prisoner of what i believed to be the expectations of my peers and until i let go of what i thought,m they thought, i was trapped in that box. today, that same prison reappears in my life, but i am quicker to feel those bars and see them for what they are, devices to keep myself from growing, self-created and managed by the part of me i call addiction.
right here and right now, it is time to go watch some football and get ready to go run around the track at the Rec Center. my tasks for this day are complete and with this being posted on the interwebs, i have the freedom to as little as possible for the rest of today.

∞ DT ∞