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and ** keeping it real, ** is a appropriate topic after my clean date celebration, when i was asked to share about how i managed to accumulate nine thousand four hundred and ninety six days clean, in a row. of course i started off with my favorite, tried and true cliché, ”just for today,” which more than sums up how i accomplished that task. it is, however, not enough to leave it at that and i had a certain obligation to share the experience, strength and hope i had accumulated across that stretch of time. back in the day, i once thought that tailoring what i shared to what i thought my peers wanted to hear, was the direction to go. i never lied about my recovery experience, but i did embellish by leaving out a detail or three and certainly never, ever let on to any of the struggles i was having.
over time i came to see that perhaps the “Susie Sunshine” sharing method was not playing well in my recovery community and i allowed the cynic inside to take over. the pendulum swung from bon mots and yippy-skippy to dark and dreary and every success i shared about had to be colored by just a tinge of darkness, as nothing was ever rainbows and daisies in my life. as a result, i certainly accumulated a few more men that call me their sponsor, but i did not become a “popular” circuit speaker in my local fellowship. i was certainly more sincere, but was i really keeping it “real?”
as i age in my recovery and mature into a member who has a bit of experience, even though i feel that i do not know a whole lot, i see that what i need to share is what is happening in my life today, good, bad or indifferent, without being colored by my judgement. i have discovered, time and again, that sometimes, what i think of as “good” is not. there may be all sorts of consequences coming down the pike, that i have yet to get any sort of glimpse about. the converse is also true, what i might think of as “bad” might just be what i need in the moment. hence owning the what “i do not know” bucket.
what i do know this morning is that no matter what, i will not use today, nor will i enable someone to get something they desire by telling any sort of lie, or hiding a fact or three. i also know that i have an accelerated morning routine, in which i crammed a bit of fantasy football obsession into and am still running on-time. after my very poor showing in both of my leagues, my desire to muck around has kicked in, as if i have not learned my hard won past lesson that doing too much after one week, leads to disaster in the weeks that follow. i will need to find a happy medium and perhaps i have. after this morning's little foray into the free agent pool. anyhow, it is time for me to get some miles under the diamond-less soles of my shoes. it is a good day to be myself in all the various roles i may find myself in today.

∞ DT ∞