Blog entry for:

in anonymity, for me anyhow, means that no matter how i got here, no matter how well i work a program and no matter how many times i had to start over, i am no better or worse than any of my peers in recovery. missed that point for a very long time in my recovery and attempted to be “more equal” than others through my passion for service. as long as i was visibly serving the fellowship and getting the accolades i believed i was entitled to, i was quite certain that i had graduated to a higher “class” of recovering addict. i certainly hid this notion as well as i could by deflecting the compliments i thought i was entitled to and minimizing the work i was doing. doing my best to “look humble” when i was not, was quite the balancing act, while spinning plates in the air, and amazingly i was fairly successful at doing all of that for quite a bit of time.
when my sponse suggested a change, i reluctantly went along with his suggestion and as a result, i “got” to see service for what it was to me 💯 my whole identity and leave that behind to start to uncover who i really am. the course of that decade after i made that decision has been far from uneventful and placid, as my whole world got turned upside-down. i finally believed i was worth being who i was and made the amends to myself that i had always said i would start “tomorrow.” i will be running my third Bolder Boulder in a row and am shooting for a time in the mid fifties. i still serve the fellowship, but i no longer believe that i have to “carry” the load. i may have been whining about having to open the doors at my home group, but that is just because i had to alter my routine to do so. i am actually grateful that i have the ability to make the changes in my schedule to do so. because no one kicked me out and most everyone treated me as an equal, i “get” to choose to live a program of recovery today and that means the world to me.
today, i am taking it easy. my intent was to work for a couple of hours, but as the morning wore on, that notion flew out the window. i did make my step goal, put a bit of polish on my readiness to run a race tomorrow and got my laundry washed dried, fluffed and folded. the rest of the day, i get to relax with a friend while we enjoy a cigar or two. BTW: in case you may be wondering how i can run a 10K race in less than an hour and enjoy smoking cigars, the secret is that i no longer inhale the smoke and have not done so for quite some time. after all, there are no taste buds in my lungs. 😉 so it is off to enjoy this lazy afternoon and be okay with exactly who i am and the fact that i am an equal to all of my peers in recovery, whether or not they believe that statement to be true. or not!

∞ DT ∞