Some memes

to understand this program for it to work. okay, the third time is the charm, i have been sitting here struggling with how to get this rolling and kept getting stuck by what is going around me, rather than listening to what is going on in my head. some days it just sucks to be in a room with someone who is just dumb and does not know it. i am that guy this morning because i cannot get past what i am hearing and what i “heard.” as i move beyond my block i know that i was that guy, the one who would not listen and balked at the idea of making any sort of decision. my judgement of what the program was and what i would have to do blocked me from seeing what the program had done for others. in many of the groups i was attending what i kept hearing was that they had tons of time abstinent and their lives were perfect now. what i saw was petty backstabbing gossip under the cover of showing “concern.” i modeled what i saw and i became one of those with hardly any time clean. it was not until had some recovery, real recovery, that i found the ways and means to actually listening to what most of my peers were saying, rather than playing those games and sharing for the “newcomer.”
taking suggestions and having FAITH that maybe, if i worked it, this program may just work for me, was not part of my DNA. it would be nice to say that has changed, but the reality is, my FAITH that the program will work for me, comes from my direct experience, like Thomas, i had to see the evidence with my own eyes. coming to a place of trusting that my peers were providing me the solution, rather than the problem, did not take as long as coming to have FAITH in the program. the difference was what they suggested, generally yielded results quickly. the program yielded results, but over the long run and i was not wired for the long run, back in the day. i wanted to know how this was going to work for me and a timeline that i could verify and count on. what i got were suggestions to let go of understanding the program and figuring out why i was an addict, the two most burning questions of my early recovery. once i let go of seeking those answers, other answers came naturally and here is sit thousands of days later, still clean and still working a program.
what am i willing to do today? i am willing to let go of the judgements i have manufactured for my least favorite three customers. ignorant, self-entitled and lazy are not descriptions i would like to be saddled with, but it is okay to apply them to others, based on their behaviors. i am discovering that life is too short for me to be dumping people into containers that i will never allow them to leave, even if my impressions based on their behaviors are way off the mark. just for today, i think i will take a heavy dose of my own medicine and see what else i can find in those folks who have to be freed from the constraints i have place on them.

∞ DT ∞