Some memes

breeds HOPE, which certainly may lead to a willingness to change. truth be told, my source material this morning struck me as one of those that is all yippy-skippy and full of Kum-By-Yah moments. even so, i decided to use it as my entry point into the void, and as a result, the twenty minutes or so, passed very quickly, with a minimum of stuff coming up from the shit pile that comprises my mind on some days. coming back to the real world, as i read through the news and enjoyed my super charged oatmeal, what popped off the stack for me, was the realization that even when i did not want to be in recovery or even clean, the members who were in the rooms at that time, kept encouraging me to at least give this recovery gig a whirl and if i did not think it was working out for, they would refund my misery. 🤕
i am far too cynical to ever say i had any “HOPE” that recovery was for me and would be a solution to a problem i denied even existed. yet, here i am decades later, writing about recovery and my life in recovery and wondering if i am truly encouraging to the FNGs. i know in times past i was the one who would excoriate my peers for not sharing “correctly” or for using language their counselors used in treatment, screaming at the top of my lungs, figuratively, that this is not therapy. i am glad the local fellowship survived my “defender of the faith” phase and so did i. i have not quite swung as far as to be loving and kind enough to enable my peers to live comfortably in their own shit, but i have come to a place where i can allow them to seek their own way out, offering my help, when asked to do so.
i have often been accused of sharing my “,mess” rather than any solution. i am of the opinion, that those of us who have a minute clean, need to be honest about our trials and tribulations, rather than whitewashing the truth with how “great” everything is today. part of that notion comes from what i saw in early recovery. specifically, my peers with way more clean time than myself were going through upheavals in their lives and staying clean. i stated earlier that i am not a “hopeful” sort, but their examples and encouragement, kept me clean, my feet solidly rooted in recovery and the desire to get another day clean, firmly entrenched in my psyche. i follow their example, rather than the yippy-skippy route, as it has been my experience that life in recovery is not easy or without its speed-bumps. just for today, i will allow myself to let my peers know what is really going on inside of me and how they can help, as that is how i was taught to do this program.

∞ DT ∞