Blog entry for:

of recognition, belief and faith, which can be called empathy, was what i found in the rooms, long before i was ready to commit to any sort of recovery. the members that were present at that time, seemed to understand what i was all about, but my bulwark of denial kept me from seeing they had exactly what i wanted. even after i accepted that recovery into my life, i still did not allow myself to see what my peers were offering could be defined as empathy, rather than pity or sympathy. having spent my life seeing the world through “i pity those fools who cannot …” lenses, i did not understand what this empathy stuff was all about.
fast forward to many days later and what was once beyond my ken, has become part of how i carry the message. like myself, i am more than sure that most of my peers do not want unsolicited advice or feedback. to that end, when i share my experience, strength and hope, that is what i share, in the first person. i share about my life in all its messy and gory details, without “softening the blow.” it is my belief that i am clueless about what a newcomer may want or need, but i am pretty sure they do not want to hear how yippy-skippy my life is, sans the effort it took me to get here. i know that when i was new to recovery, the members i avoided at all costs, were the ones that seemed to have sprung into their perfect lives with little effort or pain.
as i sat and listened to the quiet this morning, what i heard was that i have an opportunity, each and every day to feel the empathy and compassion of my peers, as well as express my compassion and empathy for them. i know that those who are not addicts, will never understand what it is like to suffer from addiction, in any form. i also know that expecting them to “get” what it is like to walk through each and every day, in my skin is more than a stretch. what i do know, however, is that my peers not only “get” what it is like, they too, are walking a similar path, through their recovery, into the dawn of yet another, just for today.

∞ DT ∞