Relationships in Recovery:

The NA workbook is painstakingly thorough.  Im grateful this part of my sobriety, after just  completely the steps I asked my sponsor if we can do the steps again from the workbook this time. I did not know what I was getting myself into. I would not have been ready until now to do this and be thorough about my addiction. I told my Higher Power I wanted to get back into writing, this isnt what I meant....

I can not, nor will not, i realized be in a relationship with an addict who doesn't work a program,  do the steps, work with a sponsor as my program for recovery,  my solution won't allow it. Even in non relationships  im told I hide behind my recovery. I don't hide I live it. I know what awaits me if I relapse.  I realized as im doing my stepwork the thought of a partner relapsing when in a relationship scares me as I don't know if I'd be strong enough to not go out with my partner.

When I came to these rooms I had anger, resentments, stubborness, and thought I knew everything. I was newly diagnosed HIV+ within the last month. I went to meetings by freak chance after I stopped in the Castro Country Club for coffee and someone invited me into a meeting not knowing what it was, I went because I had nothing else to do. I shared how angry I was over last couple months and how Crystal destroyed my life. I found a sponsor or he found me. Still unsure what a sponsor was, I was sure I need a sponsor.  At least I had met someone in the city. I half assed worked the steps as I got bored quickly and stopped doing step work and stopped going to meetings.  I had gotten clean by myself and was doing a good job taken care of things in my will. After I hit a year meetings were fewer and far between until non existent. By the time 2 years was approaching I was putting feelers out manipulating the situation about looking for drugs and I found.

My stubborness and willfulness got me sober again without my program and I left for my film production to trip in 2012. And I was using and slamming meth and coke. More so the coke. I ruined by chances on a soap opera as i was still coming down 2 weeks from time production rolled around. I also allowed not having a program to work ruin relationships with people because i had to be the badass and full of resentments? Whats a fourth step? Then on the trip when I hit Iowa my disease of alcoholism took over and I drank like a fish to deal with people. One day I had enough and put the glass down. I was a social drinker right? But I did it myself again just stopped but I got a sponsor anyways when I got back to San Francisco.

Here I became willful again I knew what was good for me so I started to push my sponsor away because she made me face myself. She kept it real. I wanted an excuse to use. I went to meetings, worked the steps, half assed did service commitments and I was a mess and holding hostages. Therapy helped some, DBT was a godsend, but I creating wreckage and I did not know how to stop. So I got a new sponsor after treating the previous one like shit inadvertently not because I wanted to but I was afraid to take down my walls and She was breaking through and my defense mechanism from past abuse is to run and push people away. Psych meds were out of control as well. I got a new sponsor, worked with 4 sponsored started to be accountable to service and then I started getting bored and I let down my guard and I went out.

I was out and could not get more than a week clean. Did not help I was doing 40 different things, OD'd, and used because I beat myself up, then beat myself up for using and the cycle happened. It became about the ritual, the next high, filming it, romanticizing it, finding new ways to slam and making list of fetishes to incorporate slamming into. I became obsessed mentally over things and willing to cross every hard limit. I came back not because i wanted to but because I was worried about what others thought and that initial saved my life while creating resentments and apathy for a program, fellowship,  people, and ultimately at myself. I blamed living in the tenderloin and my dealers living in my building, but I got sober in the tenderloin. The difference in my life today is I learned that my stubbornness was only going to get me killed or in jail, my will was no longer enough. I learned what surrender was to a power greater than myself, that I was broken and shattered, that I can not live without working and living a program of recovery daily in all aspects of my life, being of service,  having three sponsors and learned through the program how to live life on life's terms. While I can not be an arbitrator of another's program or solution I know better than to settle. Ive come a long way. Ideally I want someone sober in my life but I refused to be unequally yoked in knowing what Promises guarantee and in serenity, peace, sanity and not being able to share the most intimate parts of my life that recovery brings me. Normies are nice but when knows.  I am grateful for the gifts of recovery in my life. And the foundation I have today. It's hard to admit this. I would like to believe some people don't need the rooms, i actually do believe it. I just know me. A partner not making the rooms part of their life as an addict/alcoholic I would use it as an excuse not to go to meetings or work a program either. Maybe this isnt realistic,  I don't know, I just know what I spent the last 5 hours thinking about and all I can do is surrender the rest to a Higher Powers Will. I say this as I get obsessive and controllng on how things should/need be in my life that its not always practical.  I just know what I feel in this moment and that is my recovery comes first.  Truthfully I  think everyone regardless if they have an addiction problem or not should work the steps as it is helpful in lives, but me trying to describe the joy, love,  healing and beauty working a program of recovery in its entirety is like describing colors to a blind person.  It needs to be experienced.