๐ค one disease, ๐ค
Posted: Fri, Jul 31, 2026 10:31:35 AM
one program, one promise. a quick caveat before i get into writing this, i am not a firm believer in the disease concept of addiction. i do believe that i am an addict, whether that is in the same category as diabetes or cancer, well i am not sure. what i do know and accept is that once i used for the first time, something changed within me. i also know i exhibited addict behaviors long before i got high that very first time. accepting those as facts does not necessarily mean i accept that i have a disease, that however, is hardly relevant to what i heard this morning as i sat and listened. i know that is was easier for me to accept recovery when i thought i was treating a disease. these days, however, i see addiction as something that is part of who i am and recovery helps me to live a life that is freed from my addiction from being active.
for me, once i accepted that i was an addict and that was a part of me that is baked in, i could move forward with my recovery program. one of the hardest things i ever accomplished as part of my recovery journey was the notion that somehow the “disease” of addiction was something that was imposed upon me without my will. when i gave up that notion and became of the opinion that i am the addict and addiction is me, things became much simpler, but far more distributing. no longer could i act as if i had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other and the two of them in a constant battle for supremacy. i just was an addict and as an addict i have to make a place in my daily life for recovery from active addiction. it is true that the easier and much softer way is to cling to the disease of addiction rather than the dis-ease of addiction, as it former allows me to blame something other than myself. the sad truth is, as much as i would love to detach from what i have come to believe and “suffer” in the throes of a disease, i would see that as abdicating my responsibility to myself. i “own” that i am an addict. i “own” that i have to actively love a program of recovery in order to keep the part of me i label as addiction in check. the end result of doing so is that i can become something i was not, a genuine, whole and self-aware person. recovery for me has become a way of life. i have no regrets for that being true.
this has been a week for the books and if i were to run out to the dispensary to get a gummie or two, this might have been the correct week to do so. i spoke of divine plans and the chaotic nature of life yesterday. today i have returned to the chaos and random nature of life outside of me. life is just like than. yellow-jackets sting and i swell up. not being assertive in having a dentist do their checkups leads to implants, crowns and dentures. listening to my body instead of my head leads to injured reserve. it was a series of decisions i made that created this week for the book and it is a series of days accepting that i could be wrong, that leads me to another day clean. today i choose to be clean and today, just for today, it does not matter if addiction is a disease or just something that is inherent within me. the action i take for either of those possibilities is the same. CHOOSING to stay clean and practice a program of active recovery.
for me, once i accepted that i was an addict and that was a part of me that is baked in, i could move forward with my recovery program. one of the hardest things i ever accomplished as part of my recovery journey was the notion that somehow the “disease” of addiction was something that was imposed upon me without my will. when i gave up that notion and became of the opinion that i am the addict and addiction is me, things became much simpler, but far more distributing. no longer could i act as if i had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other and the two of them in a constant battle for supremacy. i just was an addict and as an addict i have to make a place in my daily life for recovery from active addiction. it is true that the easier and much softer way is to cling to the disease of addiction rather than the dis-ease of addiction, as it former allows me to blame something other than myself. the sad truth is, as much as i would love to detach from what i have come to believe and “suffer” in the throes of a disease, i would see that as abdicating my responsibility to myself. i “own” that i am an addict. i “own” that i have to actively love a program of recovery in order to keep the part of me i label as addiction in check. the end result of doing so is that i can become something i was not, a genuine, whole and self-aware person. recovery for me has become a way of life. i have no regrets for that being true.
this has been a week for the books and if i were to run out to the dispensary to get a gummie or two, this might have been the correct week to do so. i spoke of divine plans and the chaotic nature of life yesterday. today i have returned to the chaos and random nature of life outside of me. life is just like than. yellow-jackets sting and i swell up. not being assertive in having a dentist do their checkups leads to implants, crowns and dentures. listening to my body instead of my head leads to injured reserve. it was a series of decisions i made that created this week for the book and it is a series of days accepting that i could be wrong, that leads me to another day clean. today i choose to be clean and today, just for today, it does not matter if addiction is a disease or just something that is inherent within me. the action i take for either of those possibilities is the same. CHOOSING to stay clean and practice a program of active recovery.
∞ DT ∞