Addiction Recovery and Not Having the Luxury of Excuses Anymore; Living Free, Finally.

The Daily Reflection for yesterday, February 16, was an important lesson in recovery. I’m not going to mess around, I’ll get straight to the line that caught my eye. I LOVE this stuff:

There came a time in my
program of recovery when the
third stanza of the Serenity
Prayer
“The wisdom to
know the difference”
became indelibly imprinted in
my mind. From that time on, I
had to face the ever-present
knowledge that my every
action, word and thought was
within, or outside, the
principles of the program. I
could no longer hide behind
self-rationalization, nor behind
the insanity of my disease.

And that last sentence in the quote is most important in today’s victimhood, virtue signaling world: I don’t get the luxury of hiding behind my addiction any longer (or today’s “use/abuse disorder”) because, at the wonderful point I realize it’s my choices that affect whether or not I get the goods, I know better.

What that means, “inside or outside the principles of the program”, is that my thoughts, words and actions can be measured against what I know will bring me a happy, fulfilled life or what will make attaining that life impossible.

And if I still want to hold on, that desire won’t survive scrutiny; I can’t hide behind the insanity anymore because my sanity had been restored a couple of steps prior… if that’s what I’d been working for, of course.

There’s an up side and a down side, though. The up side is that we’re only reliant on our own honesty and ability to work a few steps and attend some meetings to maintain this unbelievable gift of freedom and happiness… all of which is free.

The down side is I don’t get to use excuses anymore.

As with any recovering addict or alcoholic, we’ll take that trade-off any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

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