Blog entry for:

helping another in unity, is certainly the way this gig is supposed to work. i have certainly seen that come to pass reality, however does not reflect this ideal all of the time. more than once i have seen groups fall apart when strong personalities have differing opinions on how to help one another stay clean and find a new manner of living. i, have in fact, been part of that destructive process more than once in my recovery journey. what i have learned from those less than stellar experiences is that it is not wrong to have opinions that differ from others about how to help addicts find recovery. no the lesson i have learned is that i do not “need” to pound and bully everyone into seeing it my way. being right is less important than being a unifying member and after expressing what i think is correct, allowing my peers and i to reach a group conscience about how to move forward and supporting the decision that came out of that consensus. i need not be a continuous polarizing influence.
last night i attended a meeting at my very first home group. i have to admit after the pandemic, my meeting attendance has been way down. i certainly have a shit ton of history with that group and i had to walk away from it for nearly five years, as i uncovered the fact that i thought i “owned” the group. any concessions i made to altering the format, the service structure or even the meeting times were made grudgingly. i was especially resistant to the opinions of “outsiders” who recently moved in and came out swinging for changes in how “we” did things. getting railroaded into keeping a meeting afloat after its “founders” vanished into the ether of relapse, was certainly what this addict needed to see that my opinions, are strong and conservative as they are when it comes to recovery, were not always the most correct. chairing an open meeting in a detox facility, week after week, provided me a new perspective in how i could be a part of carrying the message in its most basic form ⇛ an addict, ANY ADDICT, can quit using drugs and find a new way to live.
i make no promises this morning that i will be attending that meeting on any regular or semi-regular basis. what i am resolved to do, however, is to allow myself to take the lessons i have learned and treat those who believe they have more than one “disease” to persist in that belief, after all, there was a time when i was certainly a cross-fellowshipper and no one slammed me to my face for doing so. i know today where i can find the life i have been living lately and how i got here. when i let go of being “different” and having to treat addiction based on its various manifestations, i was able to find to solution for me. this morning i am grateful that i reached that point and decided that yes, i was an addict, that i was powerless over addiction and i needed a new manner in which to live, just for today.

∞ DT ∞