Day 718
How much of my recovery from sexual addiction is about not doing bad things vs. doing good things? When I began to reach out to program members, I certainly was not looking to carve time out of my schedule to go to more meetings, especially if it's to help other struggling addicts. I was not looking for new volunteer opportunities or ways to share my limited resources with more charities.
I wasn't trying to do more good; I was trying to do less bad.
Apparently, it's not that simple. For me, it's not a choice between one or the other. It's not two different pots that you get to choose from; a little bad today mixed in with a lot good from the other pot, and everything will balance out. I don't think so. That's how it felt for the years I was active in acting out.
Maybe this is more true for the addict in recovery, but I'm inclined to believe it is just true. Not doing evil is just a brief moment in time along a linear line of our existence. I remember a line from the movie Shawshank Redemption about the decisions faced by a long-term prison inmate:
"I guess it comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living or get busy dying."
–Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption)
I'm pretty sure that being content to stop being bad is nothing more than another version of getting busy dying.
I admit I'm still doing a lot of work in recovery on protecting myself from my addict — not being bad. But I doubt this will be enough to accomplish my goals. If I cannot turn this from 'not bad' to 'doing good' then what's the point? The world has enough people sitting their life away. I want to make some serious lemonade. But I also want to do it in God's time, in His direction. I just want to keep it moving up the line from where I am to where I can be better, and do better. To not do this is surely to move back the other direction.
But for today, right here is pretty good. Tomorrow and 'over there' will arrive in plenty of time, and we'll see where it takes us.
–JR
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