meetings and meeting new friends March 5, 2023

SO soon I will be celebrating a milestone of 19 years clean from drugs and alcohol.(March 30, 2004) I am so very grateful. I do believe the 9th step promises that we so often hear in AA meetings..that we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. Our lives do take on new meaning. Do you know that until the last few years, I thought the 9th step promises were actually called the 9 promises? Yeah, silly, I know. But it is true what they say, we continue to learn and grow in Recovery. Truths: did you know, that as a result of the pandemic of Covid 19, the need to connect with other people in Recovery helped to create the zoom online meetings of so many AA, CMA, and NA groups all across the United States and the world. It is because of that, so many of us found others like us that sought to be clean...others being the key word that includes the diversity of a wide range of people. My groups now include LGBTQ+ in Recovery. I find this truth (that there are other LGBTQ+ seeking to be clean and stay clean) an awesome discovery. My first truth of discovery when I first did get clean was that I was not alone...there are so many people of different faiths, different creeds, different journeys in life..all coming together with the main purpose of getting and staying sober and clean. Also, the idea of a spiritual solution? that was a discovery for me that before I didn't think one had anything to do with the other...ie drug use and spirituality....well, truth is, when actively using drugs, I was basically smothering any remnants of spirituality in my being. so, in that aspect, i suppose that drug use does not have anything to do with true spirituality..drug use is all about instant gratification...and my definition of spirituality was warped and totally off misunderstood. I recognize now that we can live a spiritual life in Recoverty, but we must give up that relationship with drugs..the healing is an ongoing journey..I say that because so many aspects of our lives has been perverted by drugs...whether we were perverted and then used drugs to okay that perversion or we used drugs and then acted out in perverted ways..is like the cart before the horse, or is the horse before the cart. NO MATTER...the thing I have come to realize for this addict...that I acted out in perverse ways when on drugs...first things first, remove the drugs..and unless I find a new path or routine in life, I will likely think perversely...and if i think perversely, eventually, I will return to adding drugs into my life because my old self will think it would be better, or it doesn't matter, or that I don't matter...so, what do I mean when I use the term "perversely"...well, for me, it is thinking in self-centered, selfish, un-Godly, instant gratifying ways. Life in recovery , for me, is to stop thinking i am the only one who matters ..well, i am the one who I go to bed with every night, and I am the one who I wake up to each morning. The loneliness can be over-whelming if we leave it there. In the 12 step fellowships, we remove the drugs, and we also realize we are not alone. It was an awesome feeling when I went to my first meeting after returning home from prison. They