Some memes

in the rooms, i looked for excuses to leave or for reasons that i did not belong. i was adamant that my only problem was a legal one and that was related to someone ratting me out, not because i was some sort of addict. during those eighteen months of mere abstinence and fronting recovery, it became harder and harder for me to deny that justice system was not at the root of my problems. finally, when the desperation of not being able to use, after i bought the sack, reached over the wall of my denial, i was finally ready to actually come to believe that i was an addict. even then, i was still quite sure that when my number was killed, i could and would return to the life of a using addict, and even though i honestly worked a program, just for today, the clock was always ticking down to that fateful day. that day has come and gone, and if you are reading this here and now, it probably goes without saying that i did not return to the life of a using addict, at least not yet. i have come to find that living clean and living a daily program is a whole lot better than any sort of life i had when i was a “wake and baker.”
as i remember my tenuous hold on abstinence from back in the day, i have a warm spot in my heart for those who are “forced” into coming to the program these days, through external circumstances and consequences. in concert with my peers, i offer my hand to them and let them know that maybe, just maybe, like me, they have found a place where they can just be. i often back off from the parade of newcomers, but i have yet another man who is calling me his sponsor, who is a FNG. even though i say i am clueless about what a newcomer needs these days, i seem to okay giving them what they need to keep coming back. i like to think of myself as stoic, and that often comes off as aloof, intimidating and cold, to others. for me, stoicism once meant swallowing my feelings and putting on my game face, no matter what. what it means today, is a constancy of responding to the world around me, rather than reacting and perhaps that is beginning to show in the way i approach the newest of the new.
i am a very poor judge of what i need and all about what i want. this morning, i want to get my workout in, the dawg walked, and my laundry completed, before i take off to enjoy a cigar or two this afternoon. i am not so sure about what i need in that same slice of time, but i am willing to stop and take a pause, if i feel as if i am going down the wrong path. it is a good day to be clean and whatever it is that attracted my newest sponsee to me, is not something i understand, this morning. just for today, i will continue doing what i have been doing and allowing myself the freedom to not think about the what, how or why of the outcomes.

∞ DT ∞