Some memes

a minute in recovery, my prehistoric brain still has its moments of eat or be eaten. it seems as if, some days, i am still the self-obsessed intellectual bully i was when i came to the rooms. always having to be right, fighting tooth and nail to be right and leaving a wake of destruction behind me. there is some good news, however dire that last bit may sound, those times are less frequent than ever before and seem to be decreasing in frequency and intensity, as i continue to live an active program of recovery. to quote one of the most prevalent bon mots in my fellowship, “i have grown up in recovery.”
when i first got clean, i thought i was a grown ass man and had already matured, after all, i was not living at with my Mom and Dad, i had two careers that i was moderately successful at, and had married and divorced. all those symptoms of being adult were actually a simulacrum of adulthood, as i was still a rebellious and recalcitrant teenager at heart. having to work for my parents, because my addiction had stripped me of any ambition to be a stellar employee and seek shortcuts, was met with denial and a petulant frenzy. after the emotional shock of being confronted with my shoddy work, wore off, i quickly slipped back into the fog of denial and went on my merry way. when i look back at the child-man that walked into the rooms and did his best to disqualify himself from any sort of help, i am amazed i lasted long enough to “flick the recovery switch” and adopt the program of recovery that continues to this day.
i started off with a sweeping generalization i lifted from my source material. it has actually been nearly a year since the last time that “eat or be eaten” mode has been activated in me. a year ago, dealing with the mess my Mom left behind, the addict who was sucking every drop of money they could from my Mom's meager estate and doing nothing to plan for their future on the streets, it was an everyday occurrence. i was constantly on my guard and i had a hair trigger. it is no wonder that when the melanoma diagnosis came, it felt like the last straw and the insanity of just one seemed like a good idea. with some distance and some work on myself, i see that as part of what needed to happen in order for me to get to where i am. i have cut myself off from the addict to which i am related, as i know i still have a few remnants of resentment left, especially as what she did becomes more clear. today, however, i have the desire to let go of my shit, so maybe, just maybe it is time to seek the ways and means to forgive them, as i have no desire to stay sick, any longer.

∞ DT ∞