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not exactly the message i walked away with after my first meeting. no sir what i walked away with from that first meeting was confusion and more than a bit of fear. after all, i was incapable of feeling much of anything else those days and if i let myself identify with the members present that night in february all those years ago, i might catch their disease and be doomed to a life in the rooms.
these days i do see that i have a disease that permeates my entire being, in fact one might say that i am my disease and everything i see, feel do, think and believe is affected by that part of me i call my disease. i know that concept is a bit much for some to grasp, but it does simplify things for me. just like the disease of cancer is not some alien infestation, but part of my body that has turned against the good of the rest of my physical body and does whatever it needs to feed itself and grow, regardless of the consequences to me. i see my addiction as a spiritual and emotional cancer of sorts, and just like the physical illness of cancer can be treated, sent into remission but never truly cured. it is not a coincidence that the medical doctors declare cancer patients "cured" after five years of remission. those professions that keep track of the various success rates of programs that deal with the disease of addiction, also use that five year mark to declare successful completion of treatment.
for me that is way too dangerous to even begin to believe. i know why professionals want to quantify when a disease is cured, it makes for better statistics and encourages further funding for their research, when the only truly valid measure of a cancer or addiction cure rate would be if the patient died while still in remission. those numbers are far too grim to publish and only make me grateful that i choose to believe that my spiritual cancer is never cured and only in remission as long as i apply the treatment -- the twelve steps of the fellowship that gave me this new life. would i like a cure for my addiction? not necessarily, the benefits i get from being clean, participating in my recovery and working the steps go way beyond remission from active addiction and i want them to continue. my life is different than it was sixty days ago, and who knows where i will be in another sixty days. the only constant in the changing landscape of my life is the program and the fellowship, and you know for this recovering addict that is more than okay today -- working the steps has yet to kill me, so i think i will do what is put in front of me!

∞ DT ∞