June 24 • Arrogantly Recovering. Not.

Day 716 The more I know about most things, the more I know that I don't know. In every career challenge of my life, I would use my prior experiences to get a job that I often had no business getting. Fortunately, I was pretty good at quickly learning, adapting, and growing into each position. Still, it required some painful and prolonged days of acknowledging (at least to myself) that I was in over my head, and then humbling digging into the layers so I could dig myself out. It's been my experience that the people who refuse to acknowledge how much they have to learn are the ones that tend to be the most arrogant. They are the least liked, and the most likely to be referenced with words like idiot or even dangerous . I am finding the same to be true with recovery. The humility part has been easier than in the work world, mostly because I'm still an unworthy dangerous idiot that believed he was the cock of the walk that had found the answer to immortal life in his sexual compulsions. I started recovery with the lowest level of information and education with which I had ever started in a new challenge. And it's still hard nearly two years later, or more than two years later, depending on when my recovery actually began. But I can still find an arrogance in my humility and Step efforts that will get me in trouble. I know, because I have. Recovery has no need for arrogance or any other tools we've used to lie to ourselves and others. Acknowledging our depraved actions and recognizing and receiving the grace that comes from others and our Higher Power, requires the humility of a child that has done wrong, but still knows they are loved. It requires the contentment that comes from knowing neither my achievements nor failures define me today nor the man I will be tomorrow. –JR