Loving My "Disease"

A thought occurred to me this afternoon that there is no benefit in hating my alcoholism. It is indeed a part of me. Battling and feeling negatively towards the things in myself that led me to my destructive drinking is being being at war with a part of myself. There is no peace there. I reflected on the idea of loving my "disease" or whatever you want to call it. Loving the parts of myself that caused me to drink destructively. It sounded so crazy at first. I analyzed and reflected on this thought for awhile. The realization I came to was that it is possible to love the parts of myself that I dislike as it gives my life a meaning. A purpose so to speak. The well spring of creativity to help deal, change, and improve my life. A part of myself, heretofore, I did not want to acknowledge, because I thought I would have to hate that part of me. Yes, the integration of my self to the point of loving both my better traits and the one's that do not serve me as well. Always seeking to minimize those things about myself that hold me back from the love of all things, including myself. The word is surrender. The action is acceptance. The solution for me is self directed and empowering action. To broaden it out a bit if I may. However, one accomplishes what I think is an important state of being takes the willingness to try many paths, false starts, discipline, and persistence until we find the path(s) that serve us best on our journey through life until the final suffering of death... The forks in the road are many, the path not straight, the pain almost excruciating at times, and sometimes the path is hardly discernible. At times we may even have to blaze our own new path until we connect to another trail.... After all this I still had my doubts that I was operating with a full deck so to speak. Then a friend posted a series of poems and one of them was: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows... I interpreted the poem as saying what I was trying to in more beautiful words than my cold analytically expression and writing style. Thank You my friend...