June 26

HUMILITY MONTH: DAY 26: ““There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ― Ernest Hemingway

This is what we work toward around here…improving that person we were trying to kill with alcohol and drugs. Getting to a spiritual awakening is a process that can seem to be incredibly slow; with some intense moments of shooting past the moon, in my experience. I am the best me I have ever been, but I can see the areas where I would like to continue to improve. I have a strong feeling that just about that moment when I feel satisfied with my progress I will cease to exist in this human form. I am eternally grateful for this process and how it unfolds for me. There were things I was well aware of in the early days that have been more difficult to conquer, as far as character defects go. While honesty with others is not so much of a challenge, I find that self-honesty is quite a bit more difficult to maintain. As I progress through this development of stronger assets, I can see how it is an unfolding of the petals rather than a big burst of blooming that I am going through. Some flowers bud and bloom very, very slowly…others are here and then they are gone very quickly. It is astonishing that my character defects and assets are much the same. Some things have not tempted me into old behaviors since the very first days around here, others are not even on my radar for a long time, then I see how problematic they really are. The self-honesty thing is elusive and quite interesting to recognize and master. I don’t have a handle on it yet, because I find that my “ism” is quite well equipped to keep me from knowing what others see in me for as long as possible. That is the nature of both my humanity and my addiction. An interesting and intense combination. I am so grateful for the process, for the steps and the ongoing nature of this “grasping and developing” we get to go through. I was sure I was complete after the very first time through these steps and that it was just going to be life on life’s terms after that. I do not know how others are able to do that. I have met a few, and I do not get to judge how that has worked for them. I just know that I would be in big trouble if they had been the only people I ever met. I continue to work through all 1-12, with a great deal of love for the process of healing how broken I was on that day I got to this picnic. Yes, for me, this is a picnic! I get to work with a lot of recovering people and they want to tell me how “hard” this thing is…and I know better. It is NOT hard…it is uncomfortable, unfamiliar and stretches previously unused muscles. I consider THAT a good thing…not a hard thing. Nothing in recovery is ever as hard as staying loaded and drunk was for me. That was hard…trying to balance things and keep others from finding out all those horrible secrets I had to keep…it was killing me and offered no hope for an end-date. Recovery isn’t hard…just different. And most addicts fight like hell to never change anything about themselves, just outside circumstances. That isn’t going to work. All of the change must take place within us to change outside us. Fighting our resistance to these changes is the hard part. But that takes almost no effort, just lots and lots and lots and lots of acceptance. And this is the process where we can get humble…over and over and over again, at least for me.