Terminal Uniqueness

Today's Just For Today's entry was about hardships and terminal uniqueness.... "So many of us feel different or unique."

Terminal uniqueness is just that, terminal. There is "....nothing that can make us ineligible for the program not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything." I know people that believe their lives have been too hard for recovering. They may die, and I'll have to let them go.... One is a painkiller addict, the other a major stoner. I know that an overdose of pills can kill. I think she thinks that what she has been through has been too rough. I don't mean to belittle her very real hardships, but I don't think dying from a pill overdose will help her. She simply isn't getting better from her serious childhood trauma... It's very tragic, and I can't seem to convince her that getting better will make her feel better....

The other person is a marijuana snob, but I'm sure someday, if he continues down his path of grandiosity and drug use, he will experiment with other things. He seems to think getting high is a necessary component of "enlightenment," and he persists in this irrational belief. He is terminally "unique" because he believes himself to be some exalted healer sent from Heaven. Do those kind recover very often, is what I want to know? I've met several that fit that stereotype.... He had a near death experience and I think he thinks that places him above others. (A skinhead tried to murder him.)

I don't know if it was terminal uniqueness that kept me out of this program for so long. I think early on when I was in forced recovery, that might have been the case. I didn't think I would be able to talk about my very real hardships. I thought I knew enough. It wasn't till halfway through my present recovery time that I started to go to meetings. But while I was still addicted I was totally irrational because of my mental illness -- which prevents rational thinking much of the time when it is active.

Terminal uniqueness is not the same thing as individuality. It's our personalities that make us truly unique, not our problems. If we really want to we can find common ground with mostly anyone. I don't believe throwing away our individuality is the answer. I know I love diversity. I appreciate people's differences. I seek common ground and respect differences when dealing with other people. I'm willing to discuss/debate differences if that is what the other person wants to do (i.e. agree to disagree....) But I'm not willing to argue with others about differences much. I pick my battles....

I think when we start thinking our problems are what make us unique is when we start really running into trouble. Then we want to hang onto those problems (which are often in the past.) It took me letting go of all delusions about myself and not being understood to find the gold at the end of the rainbow. I began to learn what it is about me that makes me really unique.

I know we need to unburden our past/problems if we want to heal. Hanging onto them for dear life and using our weaknesses as a shield will not help us. We really need each other. "My hardships do not exclude me from recovery, rather, they draw me into it," today's Just For Today entry. I find healing among other addicts and alcoholics, and it really helps to find understanding. I don't find all that in just one other person either. I need to interact with many. The more recovering people I know, the less I feel that what I've been through is all that unique.