It’s misnomers like that, that keep people sick. It’s spreading mis-truth like that keeps recovery abated and not moving forward like it should. People, especially addicts will do anything to excuse the behaviors that brought into the rooms in the first place.

I used to believe it. I would sit in the wheelbarrow that pertained to my life and whine. I’d whine at everyone who was walking by. I’d whine, "please push me further. Please push me you know I’m sick and I need someone to do this for me. Boo hoo poor me."

It appealed to me. I didn’t want to do the work that was needed and I desperately didn’t want to look at myself. Looking at myself scared me more than anything I could think of. Looking at the reality of my life was why I started using. Using gave me relief from the feelings that petrified me. Using gave momentary relief and gave a delusion that I was actually something different. I would use and become what I wanted to be. I would use and escape reality and move one more step left from the right way of living.

The statement I heard in the rooms of recovery that I would be always an addict gave me permission again for behavior that wasn’t right. It allowed me to start walking left again because I would continue to be an addict, right? Wrong.

After living a life of more excusable behavior while I was trying to be clean only drove me further down the road of left turns. There I was wrecked again feeling worse than when I came and I was confused. I had a list of promises. Promises that said I would start to feel better. I was sitting in a dark once again just like I had before feeling the intense feelings that were assailing me and I needed something in my life and it there was nothing there.

The sense of deep loneliness was harsh. The feeling of failure was deep and deafening. Again I was shouting to walls, "how, how did I end up here?"

Through grace I made it through the night and I got myself into the rooms that I had come to love. Through grace I opened my mouth and I told the truth. Dominoes started falling for me and I was able to listen. I heard in that one meeting what I needed to hear.

I turned my back that day on the sponsor that I had chosen. I had chosen that sponsor so I could tell people that asked me that I had a sponsor. The day I asked that sponsor to be my sponsor was the last day I had talked to him. It wasn’t his fault and there is no law that I know of that says a sponsor is responsible for the people that come to them.

But at that meeting I heard from one of my heroes and in that moment of time again I heard the same thing I had heard at the first meeting I went to. "Have I had enough? Was I through? Was I finished with living a life of lies and half truths? Was I willing to change and stay changed?"

I hung on each question and again the willingness was there. The answer to each question was a definite yes!

After the meeting I followed my hero out to the parking lot and asked him to help me. He agreed and that was where I started learning the things I hope to share. They are simple things but they were troubling for me when I started practicing them.

First he asked me some really simple questions I thought but as the years have stacked up the questions even today still plague me. The first question who am I? Wow, that’s easy. I told him my name. Not right. Try again is what he said to me.

I thought for a while and then I tried again. I said the question back to him and I told him my name again. Not right. "Who are you!" It felt like he was shouting at me. He wasn’t but his intensity made it appear so.

Again I thought. Again I had no answer other than my name. I didn’t want to flunk the first time out of the gate but it felt like I was doing just that. "What do you want me to say?" I asked. "I really don’t know what to answer other than my name."

"At the grave yard when you walk through you see gravestones. On those stones is a name and then there is the day they were born and the day they passed on. Separating those is a dash. That dash represents everything the person did while they were on the earth. What would the story of your dash be? That tells who you are?"

He leaned in more. "Now who are you?"

An epiphany washed over me. I understood the question and huge rush was welling up in me. All the left turns I had taken in the time I had been in recovery started running across my mind. Along with the rush came lots of feelings. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt sorrow. I felt lots of things and I wanted to share those feelings with someone who might understand.

I started talking and I couldn’t shut up. I didn’t really try to stop but in that room with him sitting there I told it all. I spilled all the good the bad and the in between. It all came out. I answered the question.

It all came down to this simple statement and that’s the statement I cling to each day and try to bring to the forefront of my mind as I travel the day. Who am I? I’m a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven. That’s who I am.

I’ve sat in rooms and I’ve shared things looking back on now that are wrong. They were something I heard and thought was cute, funny or even pertinent. I wanted to be cool so I passed it along. The mythology was passed on as truth and because I believed it some one else believed and they are passing it along today.

"Once an addict always an addict. Not true." Why? Simple. If I stop using and accept recovery I’m re-born. But I need to accept recovery that’s the kicker. I have to do the work. I thought just because I was sitting myself in the rooms doing the work of looking good I was doing good. Nope.

The sad reality is this. I’m capable of catching someone else’s illness but there is no way to catch their wellness. Bummer. I really believed in osmoses. I wanted that to be true for me. If I keep showing up something good will happen. I keep showing up that’s all I do. I keep showing up.