Day 24.....Higher Power or Lower Power

I never knew there was a difference between a higher power and a lower power. I just thought since I believed in something that was all there was to it.

But my life spoke volumes of what my belief systems were and were not.

I don't write much about what finally brought me to the end of my using. I still haven't fully come to grips with the actions I displayed at that time in my life

Don't know if I ever can.
But everything...

EVERYTHING

I do each and every day is a constant reminder of who I never want to be again.

The destruction.
The violation.
The hurt.
The violence I inflicted in people's lives.

The scars I lashed upon the spirits that will never heal in the lives of those who crossed my path....

One in particular...her name was Dolores.

How I hurt this woman was the single reason why I decided that I would never use again. Still today it leaves an emptiness in the pit of my stomach, I still beat myself up, still judge myself so harshly and don't know if I can ever forgive myself.

I will never in this lifetime be able to show her how wrong I was.
How sick I was at the time.
How the person she encountered was not who I really was.

She was the reason I got clean.
The daily reminder of who I did not want to be .

She died six months after I stopped using.

I found out about a month or so after she passed. My Mother had seen a relative at a Christening...she told my Mother of her passing.

She told my Mother how much Dolores Loved me.
How I destroyed her with my actions.
How I broke her heart.

and now she was dead.

While I was still active I though I believed in a Higher Power...
I choose to call it God because it just makes it easier.
It has nothing to do with any type of religion.

That never worked for me.

The abstract nature of religions did not account for the reality of my humanity.
The nature of my addiction.
The things I did.
The person I was.

A destructive force claiming I believed in the character of God. My actions showing my beliefs worked on a level that in no way, shape or form exemplified any of the characteristics of God.

Good
Orderly
Direction

I can take you to the streets and slums I ran through.
Show you the scams I pulled.
Show you the crimes I committed
Tell you the lies that oozed out of me each moment.
The knife I would stick in your back the moment you turned.

and then I could tell you about my higher power.

If these were the conditions of my life...what could I ever claim to know about a higher power

...except that it wasn't.

But I was driven by this missing piece for so long.
I had no idea.
Though I was forgotten about.

Discarded and thrown away...even by God.

But that wasn't the case...never was.
I just never thought to look at my beliefs in another way.

To understand the language of religion was something I didn't speak...nor did it speak to me and that it was okay.

Different Strokes for Different Folks.

The way I live today is so far removed from the shadows I lurked in two years ago. I know I am part of the solution. Who I am and the things I do on a daily basis speaks for itself about who I am and................

Who I am not.

Still two years later...it's still there.
It tries to disguise itself as fear.
A way to push my buttons to get me to react.
To drive my behavior once again.
To have me be part of the problem...

To be the problem.

I tend to freak out when it hits.
Squirm in it's grips.
Resist the lies it tells.

I Know that "This too shall Pass."

I know who I don't want to be.....

But it still lingers waiting for the moment to make its re-entrance into my life like an old long lost friend from far, far away.

Enticing me with it's sweet nothings and false hopes.
Torturing me with the uncomfortably.
Punishing me .

I don't give in.
I can't.
I won't.

It's not who I am anymore.

Until tomorrow,
Might Morgan