Day 446
Competition has been a subtle driver in my life, but powerful. It was rarely about winning a score-keeping game but more about the realms of perceptions and judgments.
It has been important to me to be seen as the best person in the room, even when I knew better. And I never really appreciated the danger of that. I see it now as even in recovery groups, I find myself positioning for that regard as someone who is doing right, or at least better. It gets in the way of my honest listening and speaking and transparency.
I suspect the same is also true at home. I want my wife to believe in my recovery, probably more than I want recovery. That doesn't mean I'm not serious about getting better, but her view of my progress sometimes seems more important to me than my actual progress.
My addict continues to compete for attention with my humbled self. Maybe I'm doing it right and just allowing the mysterious creepings of what I once would have called 'Satan' to make me question my motives. Or maybe I've become so aware of how I've disguised myself from life through deceit that I'm wondering about such things with good reason.
Either way, it seems better to consider such monumental minutiae without regard to how my wife or my sponsor or the stranger on the bus views my path. It is my path, and I don't need to compete for anyone's approval. But yet, I do.
There is progress, and it will continue.
–JR
The truth is I was afraid
I felt inferior
I felt I excelled in competing with others
And I knew instantly
That these people were not competing at all
–Ray Barretto, ”Go"
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