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๐Ÿค even with time clean, ๐Ÿคฎ

Posted: Wed, Apr 22, 2026 10:05:20 AM

i can find myself with a problem or a situation with which i have no idea how to handle. way back when, in a much earlier phase of my recovery journey, i had no issues about sharing anything and everything that was going on with me. of course that was after i finally stopped pretending that at a few years clean i “had to” share for the newcomer. it may not have been true, but i thought i was becoming the world's best “puker.” old attitudes and ideas carried forward, nothing was good enough for me, everything was someone else''s fault and the world mostly sucked. my problems were insurmountable and no one was going to be able to show me a way out, but i just had to get rid of them by sharing. of course, i know now that was mostly to attention seeking behavior and nothing was ever that bad. as i “mellowed out” and worked some steps, i finally woke up to the fact that maybe, i was not being honest at all and was manufacturing drama.
staying clean and getting beginning to mature a bit was when my ego took over and ego is still a tripping point today. in my head, i hear the voice of shame saying“WTF dude, with all this time clean, you should not be tripping over this and you can figure it out.” when i hear that whisper, as it no longer shouts at me anymore, i want to clamp down, deny that i have any issues and create a share based on clicheés, bon mots, slogans and bumper stickers, the yippy-skippy shit that drives me nutz when one of my peers shares that little bit of empty platitudes. i tell myself i always this place to scream into the void and yes i have enough clean time that i can do this myself.
what i heard this morning was that even when ego is not driving me to silence, that it is my “job” to be honest and admit that clean time does not equal recovery, serenity or happiness. sure, without being clean, none of those would ever be present in my life. i have been there, done that and got the T-shirt. admitting to my peers that things are not quite right, allows them the opportunity to give me their care and love. it allows me to break down the barriers that still exist after a minute clean. without a doubt, the most important thing it does for me, is to remind me that as a recovering addict and as a human being, life is never smooth and i may require, from time to time, and opinion from outside of my addict brain. today there are no biggies in my life. i will share my grief with my family over the next few days and just because i feel numb about the death of my uncle, does not mean that will last forever. i am quite sure i am not inured to the feelings of loss, i am not a rock or an island, i have just come to a place where death of those closest to me take more than a minute to arrive with any force. that moment, i am quite sure will arrive before 11 AM of Friday, although my creative work of fiction seems to be releasing some of them a i cried yesterday as i was writing a scene about a final embrace, so i am not the cold hearted monster i have been thinking i may be, after all.

∞ DT ∞


Another Look

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Tao Te Ching

☯ The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao ☯

The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics
by Lao-Tse
Translated by James Legge

Book 1

2) Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up. In the
sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years.