Blog entry for:

accountability in the insights of others, especially those who i have found to be both trustworthy and reliable. even the most shady and self-serving of my peers in recovery, however, offer me the sort of accountability i need, even if it is by a negative example. before i dive into the notions that bubbled up from the depths this morning, i do have to comment on my source material. out of the ten times i have used it as the basis for this daily exercise in mind-dumpery, all but two of them were certainly great food for thought. what i am struggling with is the clumsy titles that summarize the content and i am uncertain why they chose the awkward grammar of “others''s insights” rather than “the insights of others”. as one can clearly see, i chose to make my lead in a bit less clunky and certainly, IMHO, a whole lot more readable.
a funny thing happened to me on the way out of my service commitment last night. my newest sponsee said something that i had been thinking about for more than a few weeks now. he inferred that one of his peers was “stuck” and it saddened him to see someone in that state. when i see see a peer who appears to be “stuck,” i used to have a similar reaction. these days, i still feel sad, watching them remain sick, but it make me do a deep dive into my own progress, or lack thereof. in my world that is my feelings, attitudes and opinions about how my Mom is not living her life, which is yet another example of the sort of direction i wish to avoid. it is true that i have come to terms with the fact that she will do nothing to improve her health and gets a payoff from the fact that someone comes and sees here at least once every single day. acceptance in this matter is one thing, coming to “like” is yet another. how can someone choose to allow themselves to spin down to a very narrow existence where the sum total of their daily experience is the Smothers Brothers on PBS and the weather in California? i will never understand how and why she chose the direction off her life and i am quite certain i will never come to like it, i will have to settle for tolerating it and moving on, even when i want to slap the living shit out of her and force her to try to be a bit better. as i have heard more than once in the rooms, some are just sicker than others.
as i sat this morning, what i heard was a few places where i am certainly more than a bit stuck. the first i have already written about, the second being where my place is in the service structure of my fellowship and the lives of my friends, peers, sponsees and acquaintances. as i sat in the meeting last night, i found myself getting more distracted and scattered as evidenced by what i shared. i now see it as my reaction to what my new sponsee was referring to, i allowed myself to get dragged into the addict's share, rather than seeing it as a huge cry for help. there are all sorts of “could haves” and “should haves” flying around my noggin now, but what it comes down to is my lack of expressing my worth by attempting to place some sort of order in the chaos that was presented. as a result, i created even more chaos, at least for myself. when the storm was calmed this morning, what i uncovered is that chaos always begets more chaos for me, and instead of countering it, i need to accept it, tolerate it the best i can and seek a safe harbor for myself, as i am certainly worth at least that much. some are sicker than others and just for today i will strive to be less sick that i was yesterday.

∞ DT ∞