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are exactly the path towards getting one thousand dollars into my H.ealth S.avings A.ccount, from my employer. for me, at least in my recovery journey, it has been the inventory process and not affirmations, that have had the most concrete results. the “pay-off” is that i can go through their little modules, be honest and answer their questions by applying the knowledge i have gained through recovery. in a sense, my recovery is worth at least one thousand dollars a year! 🤣 of course, putting a dollar figure on my recovery, is just my idea of a joke, BUT like my all jokes there is an ironic element to truth to it.
if i had never come to recovery, i am pretty sure i would not be sitting warm and comfortably in a home of my own, with someone who wants to share my life. i would have probably never graduated college and my parents would have a sixty four year old resident care-giver, if i had somehow avoided prison, insanity or death. i certainly would not have had the wherewithal to drop four inches off my waist or have a spiritual path that shelters me from the storms of life. no, i am pretty sure none of that would have been part of my here and now. no telling how many treatments i would have been exposed to, or the number of therapists, counselors or shrinks i would have seen. and of course, exposing the lie i have lived forever, would probably never have been revealed. so $1000.00 is a very small part of what i get for living an active program of recovery.

Derek R,
SEVENTEEN (17) years clean!
WOW, way to go my friend and brother
glad you kept coming back, clean.

this whole learning to love myself gig, has always confused me. each time i went through the steps, it seemed that when i finished i did love myself, but when i started this new round, i saw that love was conditional. as long as i was doing what i “should” be doing, i could feel the love. the micro-second i strayed from the path, the baseball bat came out and the beatings commenced. after i thoroughly thrash myself, i then ask how could i ever love such a flawed and recalcitrant human being. that cycle of abuse has continued throughout my recovery and this FOURTH STEP is revealing that at the core of my being, i see myself as someone who needs to hide how “different” he is, from the rest of the world, because different equals bad. as i move beyond this BIG LIE, i am sure i will still stumble into bouts of self-loathing, but the HOPE, at least for me is, that those will become the exception, rather than the rule of my existence. on that note, i will post this ditty to the inter-webs and get some miles under my belt, considering that my workout is a gift to a loved one, ME!

∞ DT ∞