May 14

INTEGRITY MONTH: DAY 14: “The lust and the hunger? The thirst for power? And thus it is brewed, clearly, the heart’s deadliest poison to integrity.”― Criss Jami

Isn’t this a cautionary tale? Yeah, and SO true. I have met those with the lust and hunger, thirst and the desire to keep drinking the brew. It is so sad and empty to see what little can be settled for in life. A bit of physical comfort and a LOT of Ego feeding.

Some people cannot stop working and acquiring money. They have no other joys in life and have so few connections with others that work is their only way of being alive. They cannot step away from the control and the power to be in the world without those titles, those things that define them. They do not know themselves apart from that.

I would change this quote a bit. I do not believe that this is the “heart’s” deadliest poison, but it may be the deadliest poison to the heart. It is always the deadliest poison to integrity. It is a deadly poison to anything good and fine.

In early recovery, I knew beyond a doubt that addiction was a process wherein everything good and fine in a human’s life was destroyed, a tiny bite at a time. And we blamed everything and everyone for that, without ever knowing we were actively participating in that destruction and never seeing how we killed off all our good feelings and joy in life for the sake of Ego.

It continues long after the booze and the drugs are gone. I hear it when I talk to others who are not doing what they could be doing to fight off that impact, who are still walking in Ego and wondering why life is so painful all the time. “Self will run riot” as the BB calls it. Does not have anything to do with whether or not we are drinking and drugging. Recovery is only found in smashing that Ego and walking with that Spirit. Nothing short of that is going to work.