Day 763
What am I afraid of? I mean, besides everything, what keeps me awake at night and anticipating apocalyptic catastrophes in my world.
Early in life, I feared not being perfect. As I began sexualizing everything, I was afraid people would find out I was not perfect. As I began sharing my imperfections with massage parlors and affair partners, I feared the consequences of being found out how far from perfect I was.
In recovery, I'm afraid I won't be disciplined enough to stay with the program. As the fear of relapse keeps me focused and determined, I fear I'm being motivated by the wrong things. I fear that my children will never again see me as the perfect father I thought I was, and I fear that part of me is still working to regain my spot on that parental pedestal.
It strikes me that a lot of what I'm afraid of is already true. It just is. I can't change it. My kids will never see me the same, I'm already behind in my program, and as an addict, relapse is an appropriate thing to fear.
What am I afraid of? I think I'm afraid of perfection. I fear being seen again as that guy with his grits together or finding my footing to go back to work on the façade of that guy I wanted to be that I worked so hard to build. I'm even concerned about being seen as a 'good' addict who is a model fellow in the 12 Step world.
I know I'm not perfect and never have been. Yet, acting as though I'm perfect is a well-developed skill that allowed me to paint the persona that trapped me in my sins and my secret life.
There is a direct relationship between how close I get to perfection (perceptually) and how far down I can fall. Maybe that's the core fear — the fear of falling down and not getting up.
What is the answer to my fears? As much as I hate to say it, the answer is 'honesty.' If I'm telling myself the truth about me, and I'm neither lying to others nor allowing them to believe I am more than I am, then I will at least be living in a place of truth, and the distance between there and another rock bottom is growing everyday.
–JR
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