promises

I have grown to really love reading Last Chance on the Stairway, a recovery blog written by a cat who’s “experience closely mirrors” my own; not just his experience in his addiction, but especially his experiences in the first part of recovery.  Every new experience is so amazing, and experiencing living again is so clear and so bright.  Over each obstacle lies a new epiphany – the sudden revelation of the Great Reality.  I really loved that time in my recovery, and I really love seeing others go through a similar experience.

“It gets more difficult every day to remember the feeling of how much pain I was in then. I remember the insanity of the actions I was taking at that time—how reclusive I had become, how sad, my fits of rage, crying on the interstate—but it gets more difficult to recall the feelings.,” he writes on the occasion of his 9 month milestone.  He’s right.  With effort, I can still recall the events, but the feelings are much dimmer.  I feel them again when I look back at posts from the first year, so I’m really, really grateful that I had the intuitive thought that I should spill my guts the way I did.  Without having done that I might easily lose many of the most valuable lessons I learned in that time.

In my first year sober I was hardly employable.  I had a really hard time keeping track of time.  To some extent I still do, but having my schedule as clear as it was in those months I had the chance to go to tons of meetings.  Tons of them.  I had the chance to see my sponsor virtually every day.  I had time to read the book and do step work and I was motivated to do this thing and as a result I felt connected to the program and to my HP in a profound way.

As I became able to take care of myself again, as I lost that time to a job and school, that ardent feeling of connection subsided somewhat.  We always say to each other when trouble comes, “this too shall pass.”  The truth is that even the good things pass, too.  The more I’ve missed it and tried to grab on to it again, the more I’ve tried to pull it tightly around me, the more elusive it has become.

Today I find I feel closer to it when I let it go somewhat; when I wear it “like a loose garment.”  I sense it’s power when I feel it brush my skin, and I feel it slip through my fingers when I try to grab onto it.  My sponsor is fond of saying that this isn’t a program of make-make-make, it’s a program of let-let-let.  I stand a better chance of letting myself experience serenity when I let myself shut off the television, let myself breathe, let myself have time, let myself be present.  I’ve realized that I can be as connected as I let myself be.

Today I let myself observe the journey of another addict, much like myself, and it brought me great joy.

Namaste