Blog entry for:

thinking about priorities and a few of the events over the past couple of days has got me in a very contemplative mood. i do not want to be old PERIOD! and i have been thinking about ways to forestall the aging process, and the truth of the matter is much like the truth of meetings, time marches on and anything i do to try and forestall that march is as futile as believing that i can stay clean without meeting attendance. both are examples of me trying to impose my self-will on processes that are beyond my power to affect. although i do have some power over my recovery process, there is really no way in which i can remain clean under my own steam. one of the ways i can affect the QUALITY of that process is to take a few of the simple suggestions that have been handed down from my predecessors -- specifically regular meeting attendance, no matter what is going on in my life. whether i choose to participate in today‘s meeting or not by sharing, is really quite irrelevant, just being present and listening is often enough to get me through another day without hurting myself or anyone else. and for me today, not hurting is a priority. i have yet to try the experiment of how not going to meetings would affect my recovery, and i am too afraid to see what the minimum number of meetings i can attend in a week really is. perhaps i could go to fewer meetings, after all i know many addicts who stay clean and get by on no meetings at all. but do i really want to just get by???????
i do not think so!
the gifts of recovery are far too numerous to list here, but all of them flow from the things i do to keep my recovery fresh and growing. i want those gifts to continue and one the ways i can insure that happens i attending yet another meeting, even when i am in a mood and want to isolate myself from the world. i was speaking to another addict last night and he asked me what i do when i am depressed or disappointed about the hand life has dealt me. i told him i either sulk in isolation or lash out and everyone and everything. he told me he was surprised that he did not ever see that -- actually he said i was good at hiding that. well i am not really that good at hiding what is going on, i just realize that if i attend a meeting and act as if i want to be there, my need to sulk in isolation quickly fades into obscurity. what i do is take action and do not let my feelings control my behaviors, after all i do have choices today,. and perhaps i will attend a meeting today!

∞ DT ∞