Some memes

my clever cunning, my brute strength, or my fearlessness in the face of danger, i did not succeed in managing addiction. when one such as myself does not see drug use as a problem, addiction is even deeper within the denial structure. i believed without a doubt that i was entitled to use, use frequently and use without regard to any consequences and for twenty-five years that worked pretty damn well. when i got ratted out and was too dumb to shut my mouth, well the consequences came crashing home and here i am, a very long minute later. when i got clean and was dabbling in a more conventional spiritual path, i would often say “GOD saved me through a rat.” i no longer go down that path, but i can certainly see that sooner or later, as carefree and careless as i was, my world was bound to come crashing down around me, with or without any divine intervention.
this morning as i thought about honesty and denial and dipped into the void, where i went was back to those bad old days and memories of how obtuse and blind i was to what was actually happening to me, to the few friends i still had and to all my acquaintances. i believed that they were using me as much as i was using them and that the transactions zeroed out. what i never saw, was what i had become to reduce personal relationship to transactions and doing whatever was necessary to get high. in my mind, it was just the way of the world and if someone took offense, well maybe they did not belong in my world. discarding people for me, back in those days was simply a matter of circumstance, as cold as that may sound.
what came out of the void with me, was a sense of sadness and remorse about who i was and a bit of gratitude for who i have become. do i regret who i was? that is an interesting question, as i am quite sure that even if i broke through my wall of denial about anything, rationalization and justification would repair that breach the next time i got high. today i see denial can still be a part of my life, such as the depth that my two greatest fears were hidden at. those have existed since i was five years old and it took sixty-four years before i could write them down and speak them out loud. i certainly am not freed from them, as irrational and out of balance as they may be. the trick now is to recognize them and move on into STEP SIX, but not today. today, i will allow myself to feel the freedom i have and see what this day may bring.

∞ DT ∞