HONESTY MONTH: DAY 12: “It was a huge comfort to have a person who’d keep you honest with yourself and who also gave you safe harbour.” ― Lauren Dane
We get to see who we really are here, if we are “fearless and thorough from the very start.” And, I would like to add; “to the very end.”
I know so many addicts in recovery (?) who have not continued to take personal inventory as time goes on. They are stuck in what we call “dry drunk” behaviors and attitudes. It happens to the best of us, but with good sponsorship and reliance on spiritual principles, we are able to turn that around.
Without it, a couple of things happen; we either go back to drinking and drugging behaviors and actually relapse, or we run around destroying our relationships with others.
We get to be as free as we want to be. When there is something that keeps coming up for me, I have to talk with my sponsor about it. Sometimes it takes a while for it to become a problem that I need to deal with. I am not the quickest person to see all sides of something.
I cherish the relationship with my sponsor, because she understands that I am not here to just get by with recovery. I want ALL the bells and whistles! I want to get the FULL impact of 12 steps in every area of my life. I was absolutely like this with drugs and booze. I only drank straight booze, because I wanted all the impact I could get…no ice, don’t water it down…as I used to say, “don’t step on my buzz.”
The same with cocaine. I found the dealer who went to South America to smuggle it in and moved in with him! I don’t want that shit on the streets. I want it the best I can get my hands on.
In early recovery, this was a decision I made about how I wanted to do this thing. I heard you talk about the steps, especially Step 4. And I wanted it to happen for me, too. (Have I mentioned how much I hate feeling left out of anything?)
So, I went to work on these steps with a vengeance. I was writing for a couple of months on this huge 4th Step I had been given by my first sponsor. What I did not know at the time, was that she had not done a real inventory outside of her treatment program, so it was a wonky kind of format.
Anyway, I wrote and I wrote. At one point in time, a friend of mine noticed that I was emotionally a bit out of sorts and asked what step I was working. When I told him that I had been on my 4th Step for so long, he told me to call my sponsor and let her know he was going to do Step 5 with my that evening! So, I did and we did.
And then I had to find a sponsor who was working the steps the way I wanted to do them. Thoroughly and completely and deeply. And I did. There have been a few since then, sponsors, I mean. And they have all not been able to tell me when I need to look at something in ME that is seeming to be a problem. Today I have that sponsor. We are so much alike it frightens me sometimes and amuses me at others.
I need to hear the truth from a trusted source. About me. Not an opinion, but the truth of what I am lying to myself about. Most of the time, it is that I am too demanding of myself…duh! We all have areas of our personalities and isms that we cannot see.
I am grateful for the trust and safety of having that honest person in my life. Today I am not afraid of any truth, no matter how it might sting.
Dolphin Hug 