โ finding equal โ
Posted: Mon, Jan 27, 2025 06:51:50 AM
worth in anonymity. if it is true that addiction is the great equalizer, and i ascribe to that notion, it is a blessing that recovery can also be a place where i find peers, equal in all regards to our shared recovery. a year ago, as i was starting my journey back home, i had to come back to the mess of my Mom's estate and the using addict that was squatting in her house. this morning, as i get the final details together for the lawyer, i look back and where i was a year ago, my journey through that year and where i am today, if not for the equanimity of the fellowship that has given me this new manner in which to live, i am pretty sure i would have been easily waylaid by the overwhelming weight of resentment, grief, anger and life on its own terms. whether or not that would have led to flirting with a chemical romance or not, is not important. what is important here is that i survived and at the end of the day, learned how to once again thrive.
looking at where i am today, physically, spiritually and emotionally, i do see that the journey of the last twelve months has changed how i see myself and place in the world. what has not changed, however, is how i see my place in the community of recovering addicts, of which i am a part. i may have some clean time, lots in my opinion, but the fellowship does not stratify based on the number of days clean, one may have. i may have worked a course of the twelve steps more than once, but once again, that does nothing to enhance or reduce my position in the fellowship. it took me more than a few years clean to come to that place, and today i cherish the enlightenment i finally received, as these days it would be difficult for me to fill the shoes of the “paragon of recovery” i once had the desire to become.
there once was a time when i had to be “better” than my peers in recovery, because i did not feel i was worth as much as they were. there once was a time when i had to shine brighter than my peers, to live up to that “need” to be better than. those days are behind me and i am grateful for another day clean in a fellowship of equals. just for today, i am okay, just being me and enjoying the comfort of living in a world where there is at least one group of folks, who i see as my equals, and hopefully they, too, return that favor.
looking at where i am today, physically, spiritually and emotionally, i do see that the journey of the last twelve months has changed how i see myself and place in the world. what has not changed, however, is how i see my place in the community of recovering addicts, of which i am a part. i may have some clean time, lots in my opinion, but the fellowship does not stratify based on the number of days clean, one may have. i may have worked a course of the twelve steps more than once, but once again, that does nothing to enhance or reduce my position in the fellowship. it took me more than a few years clean to come to that place, and today i cherish the enlightenment i finally received, as these days it would be difficult for me to fill the shoes of the “paragon of recovery” i once had the desire to become.
there once was a time when i had to be “better” than my peers in recovery, because i did not feel i was worth as much as they were. there once was a time when i had to shine brighter than my peers, to live up to that “need” to be better than. those days are behind me and i am grateful for another day clean in a fellowship of equals. just for today, i am okay, just being me and enjoying the comfort of living in a world where there is at least one group of folks, who i see as my equals, and hopefully they, too, return that favor.
∞ DT ∞