Some memes

my resistance cracked and i took on this recovery gig in all its glory. i have said it in the past and it bears repeating this morning that i did not volunteer to walk into my very first meeting of any twelve step fellowship. in fact, i was dragged in by my figurative short hairs, kicking and screaming, the whole way. to say i was more than a bit resistant to any sort of abstinence, much less a life in recovery, would be an understatement. lo and behold, here i am a long minute later, writing about what it means for me to live a program, just for today.
as i consider kindness and how it might be reflected in my growth in recovery, i have to say that i always thought that i was a “kind” person, for the most part, even when i was in the throes of active addiction. by “most of the time” i mean that when it suited me to appear to kind, or when i was expecting some sort of quid pro quo, or even worse to manipulate someone into “giving” me something i desired. as sad as it sounds, and i admit it sounds pretty bad, that was just who i was. reaching a point of desperation where my prison clock had way too much time on it and my ability to remain in abstinence was wearing thin, i was desperate enough to give recovery a bit of a try.
today, when i peek back at those dark days at the start of my recovery journey, i wonder why the fuck it took so long to wake up and smell the coffee. i can still be cruel, callous, manipulative and disingenuous. i am, here go again, most of the time, not that person anymore. when i choose to be all of what i am not anymore, i pay the price, either in having to admit i am wrong to those i stomp down upon, in my less than stellar behavior, or the sledgehammer of guilt and shame i pummel myself with, as i regret the manner in which i acted. i do not like to be in either of those states, when kindness costs me nothing, especially when i choose to be kind to myself.
just for today, i choose to live a life where i align what i do, with who i wish to become. of course i am far from perfect and i provide the part of me i call addiction, plenty of ammunition to pound my ass into the ground, when i allow it to do so. where once i only appeared to be kind, today, i sincerely am kind, because i have grown into the sort of person who has the desire to leave less destruction, turmoil and angst in his wake. recovery has allowed me to see myself in a manner that was never possible in the past and make corrections in real-time, rather than wondering why so and so avoids me like the plague. i am grateful that i finally “cracked” and saw that the resistance to recovery, at least for me, was futile and allowed myself to be assimilated.

∞ DT ∞