DaamnDailyReflections w/ DaamnKam : 'Pausing when agitated'. (DaamnTalkDJO)

Freedom In Recovery: an ongoing narrative by DaamnKam
(recoveryISdiscoveryISrecoveryISofDaamnTalkISrecoveryISdiscoveryISrecoveryIsDiscovery)
Insert foot-notes ( defining ‘*’ Index?
‘ Us *Addicts, like the rest of the population, make daily decisions about what to allow in - & what to keep at bay. These choices, often appearing inconsequential, bring us one step closer to the life we want to lead - or one step closer to the hell we’ve crawled out from. Pain & misery aren’t exclusively reserved for addicts. That our everyday choices shape the lives we’ll live for years to come, that’s not unique either, as everyone dances with their fate in a similar fashion. What is the exception is the crucial neuro-spiritual difference noticeable within an addict’s framework. One that separates those who occasionally indulge in ‘a few too many’, from those of us who’ve had ‘many too few!’ This differential between *Addicts & *Normies is accompanied by the addiction’s bestest ‘ol buds, ‘mental obsession’ & ‘unstable compulsion’! oh, & ‘physical dependency’ showed up to the party about the time ‘homelessness’ kicked in the door to find ‘liability’ ‘poppin ‘financial security’ where it hurt. & the inability to refrain from our perceived *cure. ‘ =
(*The following excerpts from the origional draft on #July2020)
‘I came across my ‘90 day *’sobriety birthday card
while in the midst of cleaning out my ‘ol Chevy ‘Purp.
So much has transpired since then.
Many memories made; friends acquainted-
-Experiences, Joy & Love felt, & yes, tears shed.
*All in the absence of Heroin! *Absent alcohol!
*Without any simple sinister switches to another substances.
For years & years, Ive learned and re-learned – (& re-re-learned)
-that my recovery is distinctly correlated to my spiritual condition.
The state of My Spiritual condition, however easy to read,
isn’t as easily traced back to source. Especially for us in *Addiction
-- -- -- -- -- (end excerpt) -- -- -- -- --
~Our discovery of an article published by the #AmericanEnterpriseinstitute in June2022 was
inspiration for our elaboration of what has morphed into, our calculation of ‘Freedom In Recovery’.
We could think of no better wrong to ‘write’ than to address their organizations misleading stereotype.
What better thing to write (& re-write) on the 4th of July 2022, in the ‘most free country on earth.’(?)
‘Straight ‘outta the vantage of those in *Longterm-recovery from active *Addiction,
whether we believe #harmreductionworks or not - the columnist’s portrayal of safe injection sights as,
‘Predominantly prolonging the problem’, is positively preposterous! Those ‘writers’ should’ve spoken
to one of Us, who’re grateful for the dissolving of the #Stigma that helped hide us in our denial.
A dissolution, we’ll add, that wouldn’t have been possible if not for ‘subtly’ scattering stereotypes
susceptible to a shattering of societal ‘norms’. The strangulation of a stigma that followed us
every single place our disease did - save for solace.~
(Which, by the way, IS every’Daamn-where!)
= ‘ Even before our active addiction took hold, most of us had the underlying feeling of being different. Whether we were socially awkward or just had difficulty fitting in & playing well with others, we failed to develop the necessary skills to combat the stress of the grind.
For me, these issues didn’t ‘directly appear from’, but were more,
Fortuitously magnified by our using drugs & alcohol as a means of coping.
It’s fair to state that a primary distinction between *Addicts & *’Normies’ is a bizarre filter of sorts. (*Normie refers to an individual without the disease or lacking a diagnosis). This filter is guilty of interfering with free will/destiny, presumably residing thou not necessarily confined, in one’s mind.
Information that is the human experience passes through this filter and is subject to the strict scrutiny of what we & the medical community have concluded to call, a *disease. A disease of the mind, one that uses habitual thought-patterns to cleverly disguise itself as other aspects of addicts lives.
Briefly, we feel qualified to speak on such issues
as it’s been proven ‘one addict best helps another addict’.
Some of us claimed overqualification & addressed this
*Crisis based on the merit of mere memory, however,
As addicts, we’re prone to mis-remember & are always of the mercy our Freedom In Recovery
vulnerabilities
We mulled over every mistake & involuntarily exposed our vulnerabilities.
We experienced each instance we were told that we, “weren’t good enough”,
“weren’t going to make it”, like it was coming from someone who mattered.
Yes,
We heard every offhand comment
made by those of you who either didn’t understand us –
-or just - didn’t - want to.
Those who either pre-maturely judged our prospective situation
or altogether avoided our perceptive location. Societies always demonstrated public opinion,
(Trigger-Warning?); ‘crystal’-clear which side of the argument’s owned by which.
More than likely we *Addicts can recall negative instances from our long-ago days of
experimentation, & later ‘daze’ of recreation during our delusional ‘*Drug of choice’.
The memories that flash first, one’s with real deep-rooted trauma.
This process, arguably a form of compounded conditioning,
got internalized & slowly sown into our primary personalities,
every occasion when we were referred to as, “Just an alcoholic bum”,
or “Another junkie loser.” As *Addicts, we’re predisposed to unrightly persecution.
If deviance is the charge, we’ve been pre-assessed & found to be guilty.
As *Addicts, we’re already been deemed ‘toss-aside’ible by society.
And at times, in shameful situations treated as ‘less-than human’.
As a result of our *Addiction, this pattern of conduct metastasized
into what became our *Self-talk, (our inner-dialog).
Perversely eating its way further into our very psyches,
a narrative greedily consuming our healthy habits by
poisoning our personalities and overall perspectives.
i.e., “I don’t have a problem; I can stop blowing the child support money on spice & strippers anytime, just don’t want to right now.” “We’re never going to get out of this mess.” “If everyone would just leave me alone, I’d be fine!”, “If you had my job, my wife or my life, you’d be stripping & tripping too!”
“How could anyone actually love me?”, “They must just want something”, “I can’t love you, I don’t even know how to love myself.”, “If you love me there’s something wrong with you because I am unlovable”.
These were all real conversations we had with ourselves at one time or another,
as real to us as the demoralizing debt that proceeded every horrendous hangover.
It get’s pretty Daamn real when you’re weighing the lack of food money against the
lack of rent money all while dealing with the physical toll the disease took on your body
the night before, never mind the fact that you can’t remember
(anything after spending the cash that is)
Continually hurting all of those who cared about us,
we were seeking to serve only one thing – Ourselves & our disease.
By our very own self-indulging nature we were un-authentic
& rendered unable to formulate an adequate understanding of our own behavior.
We weren’t (capable?) of being our real, genuine selves… we were, ‘Self-‘ish.’ (Dad joke!)
Constantly in a state of internal conflict,
we came to hate ourselves for what we had become.
Yes, we had prayed to the porcelain god more times than Charley Sheen’s sold his autograph.
(God ‘bless him - tiger’s blood or not - he’s one of us & finally knows it!)
~Talk about a testament to Recovery!
This negative self-talk unilaterally served our addiction both as a means with which to isolate us & as a defense mechanism to keep others at bay. Perspective is ever evolving, our perceptions fundamentally changed as our disease progressed, why wouldn’t they change now, as we lead lives free from bondage & demonstrate it to others through the daily practice of our programs to the best of our abilities.
Whether we realize it or not we’re demonstrating a *Living amends by practicing the principals we picked up through the program. This in turn inspires those who’ve identified where their guilt resides but have yet to take action & connect with the source, those who’ve begun shifting their perception.
In the end, (not that there is, ‘an end’… aside from maybe, ‘the end’…),
At some pivotal point we came to accept this *Self talk,
(Our perspective from within the confines of active addiction),
as the default setting on an indestructible operating system that is, your brain, (our mainframe).
Stuck on the setting that best inhibited our disease to perpetuate our mental confinement, a
‘*Selftalk prison of our own creation.
Placing ourselves in constraints of servitude & repercussions of *relapse, all in the name of our addiction.
We trust you’ll agree only a fraction of the actual footwork was *abstinence.
We combat our perceptions on a battlefield in the mind, and it’s a very tricky business. How ironic is it that the practice of meditation & the act of isolation only have one unique difference when viewed from an outsider’s perspective(?) Imagine venturing out into the woods one fine day & coming upon a rather rustic, well-constructed log cabin. Compelled to get a closer view, while looking through the weathered, semi-fogged window, we begin to take in an empty room with a lone individual sitting on the floor, staring at some vague place up on the wall just below the drywall patch on the ceiling.
Our point is this,
~the intention behind any action taken is only ever truly known by the one taking it.
Unfortunately, a lot of what we learned was either self-sustaining or self-ruining.
(A selfish disease)
I remember despising myself for the reality I allowed to transpire,
a reality I inadvertently encouraged. It’s not like we all just woke
up one morning way back when and thought to ourselves,
‘I want to be an alcoholic when I grow up & pour so much poison into my system that my liver starts to calcify & decompose in my body. Hell, I don’t mind the inability to recall entire days at a time, besides, who needs things like ‘family’, ‘employment’, or ‘sanity’(?) In fact, giving up my freedom is exactly what I want to accomplish & I want to find the most agonizing way to carry it out.’
We didn’t sign up for this.
‘I’m going to become a junkie when I grow up & sell anything of mine, (or yours), even remotely ‘cool’ - to fund my main mission; mainlining black tar-goop into my veins as I enjoy being a slave to a substance, I don’t mind having a cultural stigma follow me into every worldly situation while spending most of my time & money on a selfish, slow suicide as anyone I ever gave a Daamn about not only watches this happen, but blame’s themselves for not stopping it .’
Huh-uh.... nobody I know, have ever known or even heard of– ever- thought that.
That “choice” stemmed from thousands of other, smaller decisions we’ve made, both willingly & unconsciously, along the way. That, mixed with social conditioning, a side of genetics & dash of denial, all blended up together for a truly unpalatable ‘collateral-cocktail’ of co-created origin.
The perfect potion with which to cure our ailment.
Yes indeed, we sure had discovered our remedy, alright.
For most of us, (almost all those who don’t suffer a miserable death first), the recovered doctors, judges, priests, lawyers & tradesmen, the police, clerks, musicians & literally everyone else in Recovery, for those of us still actively in our addition as well as us who wound up with a life sentence behind bars after driving home from our co-worker’s house & accidentally killing someone while in a ‘*blackout’…
The risk-reward-factor alone serves as enough of a deterrent for those who are merely *’addicted’.
Us addicts in Recovery regard risk as a qualifying factor, hell, some even refer to such events for bragging rights. While those poor souls still stuck in hell have succumbed to convincing themselves to wear the results of said behaviors as badges of honor. Scars as tattoos. Where a ‘normie’ would see blatant red flags, we’d see bright green lights! For us, it wasn’t until years later that we had ‘come to realize’ our disease, that our very lives, are a direct result of the compounded effects of every choice we’ve made. Every time we chose to say ‘yes’, rather than ‘no’. Every single instance where we went left with our friends rather than turned right.
Try feeding fifteen-year-old me that fibrous tidbit,
That, ‘in truth you created all your problems thru
the perpetuation of compounded chaos.’
Life didn’t wait for us to figure it out.
The world doesn’t ‘stop’ when we leave to seek help
& *’god’s will’ won’t bend to us simply because we’re behaving how we ‘should have been’ all along.
This is profoundly simple & still a groundbreaking revelation for those in early sobriety, myself included.
We don’t lose our old way of thinking overnight,
‘Didn’t people realize how hard I was trying?’ ‘Is everything just stacked against me?’
No doubt we learned some cold hard truths early during our initial attempts to “*get clean”.
For many of us, facing jails, institutions & death was as ‘everyday’ as eating an omelet breakfast.
An addict’s approach to this life of insanity will vary drastically in form, but unless their plan is self-moderation, it will require cooperation, communication, discipline & strict maintenance, often on a daily basis. Like a salmon swimming upriver - if it were to stop swimming, the natural current would push it back farther downstream. The integration of our program into our daily affairs is what will keep us from being subject to the constant ‘flow’ of information. The act of thinking, ‘I’ve ‘Arrived’, could ultimately exacerbate a potential ‘*relapse’. Therefore, combatting feelings of complacency is key in preventing a slide back into active addiction. Though it is a blessing not to be at the mercy of the present, or for the sake of the analogy, the ‘current’, most of us find ourselves wanting more than ‘to not go backwards’.
We want progress.
‘When the student is ready - the teacher will appear’. Depending on where our recovery’s at, we’ll begin to view obstacles & confrontation in a whole new light. ‘Blessed’ with the discovery that our ‘*spiritual condition’ is far from where we want it to be, each situation that arises in *long-term-recovery can be seen as an obstacle -or- as an oppurtunity to implement a new technique.
What better way to bring on the self-improvement(?)
Every single one of us stumbled right into a ripe patch of our very own ‘character defects’.
In the past, if acknowledged at all, we’d most likely considered these ‘problems’.
Things to all together avoid, events to hurry up & get over with, (through self-medication in my case).
For some of us, it’s either that or attempt to capitalize by using our ‘self-diagnosis’ as a self-justification to unconsciously play the victim over… (It really is such a selfish disease!)
For the few who’ve found a new outlook on life & for the few-er who’ve adopted a new way of living,
Acceptance was the answer if ‘how to begin’ was the question.
Acceptance.
This is universal; familiar with expectancy we were well versed in ‘exceptions’, just not ‘acceptance’. ‘Except’… we could not come to ‘accept’ that active addiction was to be our fate.
It is when we make this supple, yet savage distinction,
that we establish what is the first *necessary component.
A desire to change.
That desire, accompanied by the gift of extreme desperation, is what finally led nearly every single one of us to a turning point. Many of us become complacent in or recovery, as demonstrated through
our continued inability to handle life on life’s terms. We often find old character defects presenting themselves in new ways, discriminating against no facet of our personalities. This led us to finally take a different approach & exercise a capacity for self-honesty, holding ourselves accountable to a new standard of operation.
We struggled with relationships since childhood.
We’ve struggled with Love. We struggled with ourselves.
Personally, my disease had to really take its toll on all areas of my life for me
to reach a place of willingness to do what was necessary for me to recover.
With several months of sobriety behind us, the way in which we now intend to interact with life - is on life’s terms. Many of us eventually took note that we felt especially unfulfilled when we weren’t implementing what we’d learned. Essentially digressing through wasted time. We needed to
continually engaging with our recovery on a regular basis while adapting & implementing a new way to live! Our approaches are often as diverse, (& colorful), as we are. (If you’ve never been to a meeting of *’Alcoholics Anonymous’ before, simply imagine the crowd that a free-money give-away would draw; the motley’est of crews.) The manner in which us addicts carry out our new agendas is what’s referred to in the support groups as, *your program’. Each addict/alcoholic has their own personal program of Recovery, sometimes incorporating faith or religious values into one’s program & usually whichever group one finds themselves in will have literature constituting, *The program’, or ‘A program for recovery’. For example, in ‘AA’ the twelve steps are a proven process that takes one through their entire life, not just their active addiction. If you’re struggling with addiction or dependency, odds are there exists a support group specifically for you.
Connecting with others who’re also burdened with the same affliction
can prove to be indispensable for a majority of recovering addicts.
Personally, attending ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’
has been a tool that’s earned its very own spot
amidst the front of my arsenal.
Meeting people who think like we think especially when we thought we were alone!
It’s been critical, the ability to relate to their stories & option to open up & share our own experience,
strength & hope. Meaningful connection, the shedding of loneliness & a sense of comradery have all three proven to be some of the most effective weapons that any Sober Soldier has against this disease.
Listening to individuals who’ve been as down & out as you-
-and who have found a way to make it through-
-will strengthen your ability to precisely
construct the sort of *foundation
that won’t fall apart or collapse
under the pressure of motives
or the weight of time.

Going to meetings without engaging is equivalent to finally gathering the fruits of one’s labor -
-only to let them spoil before they could be passed amongst the people.
Yes, showing up is incredibly important - but - would you get a lot out of going to the orchard,
standing back messing with your ladder as you watched everyone else pick big, juicy delicious fuji apples(?) The answer’s not unless you were a sociologist or the orchard owner.
No matter an addict’s personal preferences, we’ve all got that ‘acquired taste’.
We’re bound to find whatever particular flavor pairs perfectly with our more problematic pleasantries, be it ‘AA’, ‘NA’, SA’, ‘MA’, ‘ACOA’, ‘Alanon’, ‘CDA’, A Neapolitan, or, A, etc.
(Fun fact: a group of addicts is most commonly known as, a ‘crackle‘).
(Either that or, “Hey You m0t#6R-f&@K3R’s..!... ..Stole…! ... (inaudible shouting)
‘Suiting up & showing up’, basically meaning ‘fulfilling your responsibilities’,
Is only but a facet of the program’s foundation, integral thou it may be.
Despite recovery programs varying widely, there remain a few imperatives.
Imperatives whose primary commonality is to re-instill the likes of, ‘Faith without works is death’.
In other words, to obtain knowledge is fundamental,
the application of said knowledge is wisdom.
Meaningful connection with others through sobriety is conducive to a life outside of active addiction. Connecting with addicts in Recovery to share experience, strength & hope or to co-create a curriculum, or ‘*Program’, that can be conducted inside ‘*the rooms’ when larger groups of us come together,
outside those groups, in smaller, often undesignated ‘meet’n’greet’ with the new homies!
(This is in opposition to the well-known, ‘stop’n’swap’)
All it takes is two for a meeting, all it takes for *sponsorship is two as well.
Two individuals who’ve both been to hell & back & out & back … & out
& then back out again, can spontaneously schedule a session to,
‘shoot the shit’, chopping up each other’s opinions & ideas on Recovery.
This is what’s known as,
‘*sponsorship’.
As opposed to, say, if two people, a sponsee & a sponsor,
were to secretly go & ‘shoot’ each other’s ‘shit’,
chopping up one another’s stash in solidarity.
That’s known as a ‘Relapse’
Or, ‘Just another Tuesday
morning in active addiction.’
*Sponsorship is a fundamental component of almost every ‘Anonymous’ support group.
Sponsorship is relatively simple & especially encouraged in early sobriety; even a ‘temporary sponsor’
can help guide those in early recovery through that group’s literature. Anybody with (long-term) Recovery from addiction can be a potential sponsor, just as anybody with a drinking problem is a potential alcoholic. Every member of ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ is a member when they say they are a member; “The only requirement for ‘AA’ membership is the desire to stop drinking.” Many of us are instructed to, ‘find someone roughly the same age’, & beginning in 2023 suggesting, “Someone roughly the same gender.” (We’re speculating on that last part.) Every member, perspective or self-proclaimed, is encouraged to link up with another addict that has what you want’. This is someone leading the life you’d like to lead, not, “Daamn! Look at that fancy whip he just cruised up in with the neon-underglow!”
Speaking from my (eighteen+ years) experience with addiction, sobriety & recovery,
the times I went at it alone, without a sponsor, were way rougher than they had to be.
Again, personally early on I didn’t care for some of the language, even calling my sponsor my ‘step-guide’. Each program is different just like we’re all different, finding the right match can be a lengthy process & it’s important to remember your never obligated to keep them on.
I look for someone to offer me perspective on my day to day, someone who’s capable
of calling me out on what I vividly recall being a metric ton of ‘expletive deletive.’
*(See the article, ‘Undergoing Sponsorship’, for more)
Whether one undergoes the process of acquiring a sponsor or not, (it can be quite intimidating),
it quickly becomes self-apparent that much more than mere abstinence is required.
Regardless, perspective will inevitably change when the supply-line to the disease diminishes.
Once we put the proverbial ‘plug in the jug’, our emotions resurface but we found the symptoms
of our disease continued to persist. This is because drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, food…
these were actually our solutions to life’s pre-existing problems, not the problem itself!
This should come as a bit of a revelation for one with the disease, as addicts often see
engagement in these activities as the problem.
Just as time alone isn’t responsible for our disease nor the symptoms we suffer through, we’re not responsible for our disease either. That’s right, you didn’t mis-read that... but you’re not off the hook. What we are responsible for - is our *Recovery.
In my program of choice, there are an official set of ‘*Promises’ reserved for those of us who ‘successfully’ practice ‘the program’. Aside from those, it’s best to avoid the potential pitfalls of promise & resentment. Setting expectations, entertaining resentments & failing to progress are the top three heavy-weight contenders actively trying to take us out! (I once heard in *’the rooms’, ‘Expectations are resentments that haven’t formed yet.’ That’s been my experience.
A sponsor once told me, ‘Rather, focus on one day at a time.
Take it one hour at a time, one minute, if it comes down to that.
The sun kept rising and setting and everything and everyone seemed to go on
as if nothing had happened… (We were suffering, Daamn-it! Didn’t they know who we were?!)
-Nothing changes- IF- nothing changes.
I recall feeling as if the only thing
that changed was that now
I no longer had my trusty
crutch on which to lean.
Which meant I was,
once again,
feeling
‘different’ from you...
feeling like an ‘outsider
amongst outcasts. ‘
Feeling… that was just it though, wasn’t it? I was feeling again!
We felt vulnerable, raw & ‘on display for the world to see’ without our means of escape.
It felt foreign to no longer be consumed by the ‘using & finding ways & means to use more’.
Everyone in ‘the rooms’ would tell us, “You’ll feel better”, “Keep coming back, you’ll feel better!”
It was some months later when I realized
that what they meant was, I’d ‘feel’ - better.
An improved ability to ‘feel’ one’s feelings, thoughts, actions & emotions.
I was far from alone in this experience,
in early recovery while sitting on a coach at my *homegroup,
the Langley ‘432’ *clubhouse, I recall sharing that I felt not
as if I was seeing different things,
rather that I was seeing things differently.
In ‘Narcotics Anonymous’, they say,
“We used to live and we lived to use”.
There’s no denying recovery is rich with cliches.
‘It works if You work it – so work it’
‘Principals Not Personalities’
‘Hurt people hurt people’
Despite any ‘whimsy’,
cliches can be true.
(We’re proof!)
With these freshly acquired, unfamiliar abilities,
a newly discovered sense of direction began to emerge in the lives of thousands of addicts!
Working with another addict helps to alleviate our weakening, reducing the immense weight of our adverse actions. Along the way, pound by pound we inadvertently placed these weights, these resentments, into our proverbial packs.
Just for today, we are the privileged few who can admit that the obsession
& compulsion we lived with 24/7 - has Been lifted.
Just for today we possess the mental faculties to regard our Recovery as a verb! I.e., action.
Just because one no longer seeks out the dealer doesn’t mean their living their best life.
Just for today, that life is a life in Recovery.
Just for today,
we consider ourselves blessed to be alive.
Most of us have a trail of ‘war-stories’ chalked full of scenarios where we should have overdosed & died, went back to prison or been shot & killed by someone over dope. Just because we didn’t get what we deserved then;
doesn’t mean we can’t get what we deserve now.
You are the only thing standing in your way.
Though some report relapse as a re-affirming experience; it is far from a requirement for solid Recovery.
It’s normal to go through relapse, abstinence, sobriety & then achieve a state of Recovery,
just as one first underwent experimentation, recreation & then reached the condition of dependance.
Relapse is different for every addict, but they all begin well before the *drug is re-introduced. Fortunately, the formulation of relapse prevention skills is more commonplace today & the more *Recovery time one accumulates, the less likely they are to entertain reverting to their old behaviors.
This is not to say the thought doesn’t arise,
Personally, it seldom does today
& thankfully moreover, it’s usually
more of a hollow reflection at that).
Our disease will never go away, and if we don’t
continually play an active role in our recovery,
It’s been my experience that it will again resurface.
Our Recovery demands our active participation.
We mustn’t forget,
much of the suffering that IS our disease —
-Is All In our Head!
‘All’ – in our head.
I do love my ‘A’s & my AA’s &, sometimes, the AAA’s … how about the AAAAAA’s?
Acceptance.
Acquiring a desire to change.
Admitting powerlessness.
Achieving Active *Recovery
Amends (Aren’t optional)
Asking forgiveness is necessary.

We’re pretty sure this one’s a song lyric, not a cliché,
‘It’s a problem when your addicted to the cure’,
but it may as well be hung inside the door of your local ‘clubhouse’.
Through our attempts at evading reality, we were feeding the hungry ghosts within us,
consequently starving any desirable, capable versions of ourselves. By continuing to implement what we’d settled on as our ‘solution’ to life’s problems, using our ‘drugs’ of choice, we were unconsciously reinforcing the very self-talk that we despised! An inner dialogue that dictates our emotions & behaviors, for those with clinical addiction, our *Self-talk feeds us false narrative after false narrative which usually result in the behaviors that manifest as the symptoms of the disease.
How unfortunate is it that for what we have in self-deceit
We make up for in a lack of the very self-awareness that would allow us to recognize this hellish cycle.
Unable to refer to our experience for any self-knowledge that would aid us in the realization that self-control is not our primary problem. We were self-conscious about our self-centered, self-serving ways, but lacked the self-esteem necessary to achieve the self-discipline required for the self-sacrifice of our own self-destruction. That until we’re willing to admit our powerlessness, to uncover the truth that resides in the essence of our being, shot through the very fabric of our souls, as present in our day-to-day as the lenses with which we view the world… only when we do that… own our disease rather than get
owned by our disease. Only then is anything resembling Self-mastery a remote possibility!’
(We told you… it’s a very selfish disease.)

The following is a glimpse of
(Our) present ‘*Program (of action)’
- Practicing honesty so that I can capitalize on my strengths and pay taxes to my weaknesses.
-Holding myself accountable so I’m better prepared for when I start to fall into that ‘stinken-thinken’,
i.e. ‘The glorification or romanticizing of our using history, or, catching a case of the “Why Me’s?”
-Sharing my story so that others have an opportunity to learn from my experience. (‘ya know, like this)
Of course, we’re not perfect; nor do I strive to be!
Admittedly we feel we have a long way to go before we can sit back with contentment and reflect on the
chaos that eventually led us to where we are right now. To reflect on the preponderance of,
‘little decisions’ & ‘every-day actions’ that cosmically constitute my ‘life’.
Progress has been made -
and part of this process is also providing praise
when credit is due - with humility -
(Something we knew very little of just a few years ago.)
So here it is - A big two-hands-held-high,
“Thank You!” -
To everyone who’s been a part of our EarthWalk
Throughout this journey so far, all of You, whether We’ve expressed it to you or not –
whether you’ve realized it or not – (accepted it – or not) -
We have both helped shape each other’s lives
and influenced eachothers spiritual conditions.
To the overwhelming abundance of mystical energetic force that makes up everything – everywhere - that I can now comfortably call “God.” “Thank You!”
To the man I’ve known since before he earned his title,
The man I despised more than any other human being,
the one looking back at me every time We caught a mirror,
to our critics who continue to bring us up as topics,
“Thank You!”
Without you,
I would have never overcame a failure to realize I had a shadow.
“Thank You!”
To all of the little choices I made
that assisted with the organization of this
grand orchestra to ultimately land me Here!
And Now! and here & now.
We’re writing this for you, and you - and for you,
and especially for you, (don’t you still owe me monies!)
And finally, if second best really is the undisputed first worst,
We wrote this for the ‘Us’
Who’re ‘here’, ‘now’! In this present moment.
Additionally, we wrote this for the ‘Us’ reading
this in another year when Facebook takes the liberty of
making the decision to boomerang it back
‘round for years to come. When We again edit & add on,
I hope you reading this are in awe of the progress you’ve made
Conquering this disease and chipping away at those defects
One day at a time; One step at a time, One choice at a time.
❤️☯️❤️ - DaamnKam (of) ‘DaamnTalk’
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