Blog entry for:

lacking direction and purpose, i felt isolated and had none of the things that give life its sense and value.
so would i really want the life back that i had before i got clean and finally decided that recovery was the path for me? well that is an interesting question. i know thew reading talks about the time before addiction took hold, but i do not remember such a time. whether i have been an addict since i first became self-aware or that i used for so long i forgot the times before addiction took hold does not matter. for me, i never remember a time when i was truly comfortable as myself. i do not remember a time when i actually cared for anyone else, and i do not remember a time when i was not trying to make myself out to be bigger, better and more advanced than everyone else. it is ironic that in my morning meditation i went back to the days just months before i got high for the first time. i saw my friends and the girl who was trying to get into my pants, in fact she even offered a way out of the void i was living in at that time. not that i was some sort time bomb waiting to go off and decimate my classmates under a barrage of bullets, nor was i contemplating checking out of the material plane, no i was just suffering from teen angst and having trouble dealing with the emptiness i was feeling. it is ironic that i think of those days on this day because i forgot what life was really like for me in those final days before i picked up for the first time.
so i am so glad that the program that has showed me how to live without using drugs does not promise to return my old life to me. i know i have said it before and it is true that when i first came to recovery all i wanted was my old life back, BUT NOT THE LIFE BEFORE USING! not only no BUT hell no! i do not want to go back to the days before using, and i cannot and will not go back to the days of using, which seem to be my only two choices without the fellowship that opened my mind to the third possibility, a life that is way beyond anything i could ever imagine, the life of a recovering addict!
so what am i feeling right now after my little trip down memory lane? well for one a deep sense of gratitude that although i am an addict and will remain an addict until i check out, i have a new manner of living which allows me to be more than i ever was. i do not have to consider a life without using, just this single day. and i do not ever have to return to the my life before using, if i choose to follow the suggestions of those who have come before me. this is after all, a much fuller life than i can ever remember having and there is only one reason why -- a fellowship that loves and cares for me and has shown me that i can be more than i ever was, one day at a time.

∞ DT ∞