DISCIPLINE MONTH: DAY 5: “Starting is not most people’s problem, staying, continuing and finishing is.”― Darren Hardy
Completing a piece of work is the only way we become healed by the work. The work of recovery is ongoing, so we cannot ever complete it.
So many addicts do a part of the work, then feel better. They do not complete it by sharing it with the sponsor, nor do they move on from that point. They go from “crisis” to “crisis,” asking for help when their ass is in the ringer, but never completing the work of becoming responsible and changing their behavior. They are tedious to work with because they never get past the fires that need to be put out all the time.
This is a lack of consistent application of the principles and the work to gain insight into ourselves. Many addicts believe it is their sponsors’ job to continually put out the fires or to walk them through their drama, over and over again. They learn very little, except the language and how to talk recovery, but not how to resolve their own stuff.
My sponsor and I have been together for a very long time. She knows by my voice when I am in a world of poop. Happens. There are situations that come up and I have to listen to what she knows about me. It is imperative. But I do whatever we talk about and learn to keep doing it. I can forget the simplest of things, we all do. But I am very disciplined to do what is there to be done.
Of course I can always write and read and meditate, I do these things anyway. But once in a while a situation bites me, and I have to go to her. That is why I still call her twice a week. I don’t pretend to be all good. We share everything. And it is the stuff about what comes up in my daily 10th Step work. The days when I feel something off especially.
I want to be held accountable. That is what I learned very early in this thing. That recovery requires me being accountable for myself and my life. And that there is no recovery if I am doing no service. I must be of service in the world. I don’t want to be the same selfish and self-centered butt-head I came here as. We all know how to do that.
Dolphin Hug 