Day 721
At today's 12-Step meeting, someone again brought up the promise of the program that
"we will learn to not regret the past."
I don't know how to sugar-coat this, but I still have a hard time believing that. I regret the affairs, the massage parlors, the deceits, the manipulations, the economic damage; I regret the hell out of it. However, I do believe the guys in the meetings with decades of sobriety telling me that it took them years to realize the reality and fulfillability of that promise. Based on them, and on the incredible things they've predicted that have come true, I choose to embrace the idea that there will be a moment in my future when the benefits of all this will overwhelm the lingering and fading pain that dominates my balance right now.
My regret for not only what I did in my acting out is still all over me. But even more is my regret for having told my wife in a full disclosure, even though I doubt that I would have ever stopped without that disclosure. That's an example of how mixed-up I can get in my thinking. I can see the good and still not be glad for it because the bad seems so bad; the pain so persistent.
I'm not even two years into all this recovery stuff yet, so I will not count the days until my present gets delivered; I will accept that there is work to do today and continue to do it. That will be enough. Again.
–JR
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