20 years .... where'd they go ....

20 years ... Having just passed the summer solstice, I have now accumulated 20 years of clean time. I'm not certain how I feel about that. It is a success in one right and another unfinished business item on my to-do list if you look at it from a different angle.

Recovery only ends when you hit the grave; and recovery and clean-time are not synonymous either. I spent a few years clean before I started to think that I needed to change more than just the "drinking/using" part of my life. But Recovery is not counted in days, weeks, months, years either ... It is hard to measure and yet it is completely obvious to the outside observer ... if that observer has been there witnessing from before the start. Because before June 1989 I was a very different person ... however many of my associates TODAY have never met that man. And some of them wonder if he ever existed ... not me I knew him intimately and have no doubt that he is merely hiding in the shadows of my soul waiting for an opportunity to take control again.

SO it may have been 20 years (which is : 7303 days, or 175, 242 hours, or 10 516 320 minutes, or 630 979 200 seconds) but it is all about TODAY. Just For Today ... I think I will strive to be a better man, and live with honesty, integrity, open-mindedness, willingness, self-awareness, love and acceptance. And if I can do just that ... and trust the guidance of a power greater than myself, it may just be enough.

If you are reading this, try to be good to yourself ... and remember that you are loved.