Some memes

may not be my success or failure but my FAITH in the program. for a long as i can remember, my self-worth has been based on how i thought others saw me. i strived to be someone that may not necessarily well-liked to at least someone others respected. i thought having all the answers and being well versed in etiquette was enough. i believed i did not need other people beyond the transactional relationships i had formed. most importantly was that i needed to walk with an air of confidence and a bit of self-righteous arrogance, so i would have a shield between myself and those who sought to be close to me. i played the game as if accumulating material things was below my standing and yet was jealous and envious of what others had. living in that manner created more than a little cognitive dissonance, so when i got clean and started actual recovery i was more than a bit confused about what i needed and what i wanted.
staying clean and learning how to live a program of recovery did not instantly change that self-righteous arrogance or my desire to be respected. over time, however, what it did change was my value system. as i cam out of the fog of decades of active addiction, i finally started to see myself for who i was and have HOPE that i could become someone i could admire and feel worthy of being. this morning, as i sit on my patio, enjoying my first backyard cigar of the season, far too early i must admit, i feel that i am worth being respected, loved and esteemed, by myself and by others who are part of my life. whether or not they find me worthy, respectable or estimable is not my stuff and i, for the most part, can let what they may think, go.
what came up, as i colored out of the lines, this morning and went to a different source for my daily deep dive, was that i still have some strange definitions of what constitutes a success or failure. i really do despise bumper stickers, bon mots and clichés when it comes to recovery, BUT, the fact that i have stayed clean, day after day, just for any given day, is certainly a successful day, even if things did not go my way. i stumble and yes even fall into less than stellar behaviors and have been known to act like an over-entitled, selfish oaf, from time to time. the old trope of “at least yo did not get high” may irk the living shit out of me, but it certainly does peak to a success of coming out of a sticky situation with my recovery intact. i can and do stay clean, even when i have the desire to use and i can change the way my day is going by taking a breath and looking to how important any one thing is, rather than say fuck it and driving to the nearest purveyor of something to allow me to chemically escape. just for today, i will allow myself to see another day clean as a success, no matter what else happens. i have FAITH that IF i do the next right thing, everything will work out.

∞ DT ∞