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From: [email protected]
Category: Category 1
Date: 12 May 1999
Time: 18:00:32
Remote Name: atl2-wc1.atlas.digex.net
So many times we come into the rooms, stop using, begin to feel better and think that our life has changed. We soon become complacent and in a short time we find ourselves just as miserable clean as we were when we were using. Getting clean is a process that only BEGINS when we stop using drugs. Abstainance in and of itself does not equal recovery and being clean envelops much more of our recovery than simple abstainance. Once we come thru the doors the tone of our recovery is established in our willingness to change not only our actions, but our thinking and our feelings. Old ideas of dishonesty, secrecy, deceit and manipulation, if held onto, or co-signed by others, will appear to be an acceptable part of a clean life until the pain of these defects make it clear that change is necessary. A primary indicator of this is repeated insanity. Such as denying a need to change by pointing fingers and avoiding responsibilities for our actions. If I tell a newcomer that I hung out in bars when I got clean, the impression that I give that newcomer is that it is ok to hang out in bars. Should the newcomer do this and relapse it's easy to say that he was not working his program or that he made his own choices and that I had no responsibility in it what so ever. If I lie, cheat or manipulate and encourage this behavior in others, coming to me for help, and the pain becomes to great for them to bear clean I can always place the blame on them for not working the steps, calling their sponser or bringing it up in meetings. Again, I can avoid responsibility. If these are the things I did in early recovery and some how remained clean, it does not mean I should encourage the same behavior in others. If I am still practicing this type of behavior, it may mean that I either haven't suffered enough or that I am in denial of how my disease has manifested itself in my life. In such a case, when I share these things and encourage them in others, I am not carrying the message, I am spreading the disease.