my daily reflections…

recovery has given me much, things i could never had had if i hadnt had the desperation which produced a moment of clarity that brought about the decision to change. the mere decision wouldnt have meant shit unless i made the effort to commit the action of openin the door to the halfway house i moved into. i was out of options, plain and simple. everythin i had tried, everythin i had thought, wouldnt allow me to drink without the chaos that soon ensued. i was trapped man, i was a pawn to alcohol and my alcoholism. the people in the rooms said that if i did a few simple things, followed a few simple rules, yes, they said rules, why did they have to use that word, “rules”. i was so stubborn and self-willed i needed them to grab their hard cover copies of the big book and hit me in the head with em. it was seeminly the only way i would listen. they told me that if i did what they suggested that i would soon feel within the freedom they lived. and it was so messed up to me too, i thought it was just freedom from alcohol, so early on. as i sat in the rooms, listened, and mulled over my options as to if this recovery thing would really work if i followed their so called suggested “rules”, i learned that the freedoms they spoke of ran much deeper than just the choice to not drink. see, i didnt understand that alcohol had me doin shit and behavin in ways that made it so i would procure the drink i craved. i couldnt see how i had been cut off from other people, especially the ones that loved me the most. i wasnt free to accept the love they offered or the love i wanted to give them. the routine of pleasin my alcoholism, gettin up, gettin drunk or high, tryin to make it through the day without anyone gettin in my way, blackin out, passin out, wakin up, all just to do it all over again, wasnt the freedom i thought i had been livin. what i found from those big book beatins was the old-fashioned honor and morality i always thought i was livin but never really was. recovery showed me just how fortunate i was to have lived through doin my dirt and find within the program an answer to the malaise that afflicted me and kept me from true freedom. since those early teachins, through self-inventory, havin practiced humility so i could try to live with an unsparin self-survey and positive criticism, i have found the freedom from, and freedom to, let self-searchin become a regular habit. with the inventorys i have done, workin hard to honestly correct what is wrong within, as change formed slowly in the alembic of my early discontent, i get to remain free today. 1 day @ a time...