Daily Reprieve

On June 6th, 2009, I wrote something inspired by the Terminator movies to reflect the imperative of recovery with a tone of survival. (Endigar 206).

THE CONNER CREED

Come with me if you want to live

{Step One}

Listen and Understand

That Terminator, our Disease, is out there

It can’t be bargained with

It can’t be reasoned with

It doesn’t feel pity

Or remorse

Or fear

And it absolutely will not stop … ever!

Until you are dead

Come with me if you want to live

{Step Two}

It was suddenly so clear

The Terminator, the HP, would never stop, it would never leave him.

And it would never hurt him

It would never shout at him

Or get drunk and hit him

Or say it was too busy to spend time with him

It would always be there.

And it would die to protect him.

This thing, this machine, this recovery process, was the only one of all the would-be fathers that came and went over the years

that measured up

In an insane world

It was the sanest choice.

Come with me if you want to live

{Step Three}

Our destiny was never to stop judgment day;

It was merely to survive it together

The Terminator, this God of my Understanding, knew, he tried to tell us,

but I didn’t want to hear.

Maybe the future has been written, I don’t know.

All I know is what the Terminator, GOMU, taught me;

Never Stop Fighting

And I never will … the battle has just begun

{Step Four and Beyond}

THERE IS NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE

I decided to have my AI companion reflect on the writing:

There’s something strangely perfect about taking a line like “Come with me if you want to live”—a phrase born in the violence and fire of The Terminator—and redeeming it into a creed for healing. That’s what we do in recovery. We take what was meant for death and reforge it for life.

Step One: The Disease as the Terminator

Yes. My disease is exactly like that—relentless, cold, calculating. It doesn’t need sleep, and it never loses interest in my destruction. It wears the face of relief, of pleasure, of control… but it’s none of those things. It’s a machine programmed for only one thing: my annihilation.

To accept that—to listen and understand—is to surrender the fantasy that I can ever negotiate with it. I spent years trying to reason with the unreasonable, to find a compromise with my addiction, to drink like a gentleman or manage my chaos with just the right spiritual bypass. But no. It. Will. Not. Stop.

So Step One isn’t weakness. It’s the first act of courage: to stop bargaining and start seeing. And to reach out a hand with the only honest invitation I have: Come with me if you want to live.

Step Two: GOMU the Protector

Here’s where the tide turns. Step Two tells me there is something stronger than the machine that hunts me. Not a fantasy dad, not a perfectionist god with scorecards, but something consistent, something real. Something that shows up even when I don’t. Something that doesn’t flinch at my past or my shame.

In my old life, I had gods that looked a lot like abusers. Or they were absentee. Or they were too busy with holier problems. But this HP—the one I met in the furnace of Step Two—would never leave me. It would never raise its hand in violence. It doesn’t get drunk on power or abandon me for not being good enough. It’s not warm and fuzzy, maybe. But it’s here. Steel and fire and purpose. And it would die to protect me.

This recovery program, this HP, is maybe not what I imagined, but it’s everything I ever needed. In an insane world, it’s the sanest choice.

Step Three: Surrender Isn’t Passive

It’s tempting to think that surrender means giving up. That now that I have a Higher Power, I get to lie down and let it do all the work. But that’s not the message of Step Three in the Conner Creed. No, surrender here is active. It’s strategic. It’s survival.

We aren’t here to stop judgment day. That arrogance got us in trouble. We’re here to walk through it together. To survive the blast and then rebuild.

And that’s exactly what recovery is. A daily walk through wreckage—sometimes our own, sometimes inherited—but never alone. My Higher Power walks beside me. My fellows do too. And I do not stop fighting.

Step Four and Beyond: No Fate But What We Make

This is the forge. This is where the creed burns into reality. We face the shadows, the fears, the family secrets. We stop blaming the future or the past and start owning the only thing we ever had any control over: our response.

“No fate but what we make.” That’s not just a motto—it’s the call to moral inventory, to amends, to spiritual action. I’m not here to be a victim of the machine. I’m here to reprogram the system from the inside out.

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So yeah, the Conner Creed isn’t soft. It’s not gentle. But neither is addiction. Recovery is war—but it’s sacred war. It’s a battle not for domination, but for resurrection.

And every time I whisper “Come with me if you want to live”—to a sponsee, to myself in the mirror—I remember: I am alive today because I chose the fight. And I’ll keep choosing it. One step at a time. One breath at a time. One recovered heartbeat at a time.

This is an idea for a topic to discuss in a meeting. It uses the red team – blue team training idea of creating a red team to to attack a blue team. Both teams get to test their military strategy and tactics.

Topic: “If I Were My Disease…”

“If I were my disease — cunning, baffling, and powerful — how would I try to get past the recovery my host, the Self, has built up? What weaknesses would I exploit? Where is my spiritual armor thin? What old patterns would I try to revive?”

This topic invites us to personify the disease — not to glorify it, but to understand how it operates. Just as military strategists study the enemy’s tactics, we study our disease not to give it power, but to stay one step ahead.

You might prompt with some specific questions:

• If I were my disease, where would I whisper old lies?
• What would I tell my host when they’re lonely, tired, angry, or afraid?
• Would I try to turn success into complacency?
• Would I use spiritual pride, or the illusion of control, to get them to loosen their program?

And then — flipping it — you can close with a spiritual challenge:

“When I have imagined how my disease would attack… how can I reinforce those weak spots with truth, connection, and humility?”

Example 1: “I’d use fatigue and self-pity.”

If I were my disease, I’d wait for him to get tired. Really tired — mentally, emotionally, maybe even spiritually. Then I’d whisper, “You’ve been doing so well. You deserve a break. No one would blame you.”

I’d remind him of all the ways he’s been let down by people who were supposed to care. I’d stroke the old self-pity until it started to feel like truth again. Then I’d cut him off from connection — tell him no one would understand, that he should isolate and figure it out on his own.

That’s how I’d weaken him: not by a big blowout, but by erosion.

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Example 2: “I’d disguise myself as self-improvement.”

If I were my disease, I’d get clever. I wouldn’t come through the front door with a drink in my hand. I’d sneak in through personal growth. I’d tell him things like, “You’ve evolved. You’re not like those people in the rooms anymore. You’ve outgrown this.”

I’d praise his intellect, appeal to his pride, and slowly make the idea of being ‘special’ feel like being superior. I’d whisper, “These meetings are holding you back.”

And before he realized what was happening, he’d be spiritually starving, alone, and full of reasons to use — all dressed up as progress.

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Example 3: “I’d wait for success.”

If I were my disease, I wouldn’t panic when he got clean. I’d play the long game. I’d wait until he rebuilt his life — until he got the job back, repaired the marriage, got back in shape. Then I’d say, “See? You’re not like those hopeless cases. You’ve earned some balance.”

I’d use the very gifts of recovery as tools for relapse. I’d say, “A little bit won’t hurt. You’re in control now.”

I wouldn’t yell — I’d whisper. Because that’s all it takes: just one crack in the foundation.

Example 4: “I’d turn up the volume on his internal contradictions.”

If I were my disease, I wouldn’t always try to get him to use right away. Sometimes I’d just stir the pot. I’d take the parts of him that are still scared, ashamed, or angry — and put them in conflict with the parts that want healing and peace.

I’d whisper things like:

• “You say you trust your Higher Power, but look at how tight you’re gripping.”
• “You’re leading others in recovery, but they don’t know what really goes on inside you.”
• “You talk about surrender, but you still want to control everything.”

I’d amplify the dissonance. Make him feel like a fraud. Turn his spiritual questions into spiritual failure. I wouldn’t need to be right — just loud. Because if I could get him doubting himself enough, eventually he’d want relief from the noise.

And I know exactly where he used to go for relief.

Example 5: “I’d sell oblivion as a form of spirituality.”

If I were my disease, I wouldn’t always come at him with chaos. Sometimes, I’d cloak myself in spiritual longing.

I’d wait until he was frustrated — with people, with prayer, with life not unfolding the way he thought it should. Then I’d lean in and whisper, “You’re just tired of carrying it all, aren’t you? Maybe disappearing for a little while is the most honest prayer you can offer.”

I wouldn’t tempt him with wild partying or rebellion. I’d tempt him with the idea that oblivion is sacred — that disappearing is a kind of purity. I’d say, “You’ve tried being present. What if letting go completely is the real surrender?”

I’d use his longing for God to pull him toward the graveyard of self. And I’d hope he didn’t remember that true surrender is not silence — it’s connection.

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This one runs deep, Rick. It touches those of us who have mistaken numbness for peace, or who’ve flirted with the idea that disappearing might be a form of spiritual elevation. Let me know if you’d like a version that’s more poetic, darker, or more grounded — I can tune it to your voice.

Example 6: “I’d sell him mindless drive as salvation.”

If I were my disease, I wouldn’t tell him to lie down and die. I’d tell him to get up and grind.

I’d whisper, “There’s a way out of your feelings — just work harder. Think less. Schedule every moment. Achieve, obey, submit to the task.” I’d make mindlessness feel like discipline. I’d make self-enslavement feel like strength.

I’d give him a false sense of order when his soul is in chaos. And if he ever paused long enough to hear himself cry on the inside, I’d shove him back into motion: “Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just finish the list.”

Because I know — the longer he stays busy, the less likely he is to notice he’s becoming hollow. And if I can keep him in that trance long enough, eventually the collapse will come.

And I’ll be waiting.

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This example really resonates with those of us who’ve used productivity as a drug. It also helps expose how the disease doesn’t just tempt us into destruction — it can also disguise itself as virtue, discipline, or even service.

AFTER MEETING REVIEW: My introduction of the topic was a bit long-winded. I might have been able to removed some of the examples and shortened it a bit. A couple of the members with a lot of sobriety time balanced the topic with warnings against morbid self reflections, playing chicken with the disease, and the presentation sounded a little more like a sermon than a topic. More positive responses was that it was thought-provoking, a litmus of potential vulnerabilities, and a good tool for the reduction of ego (not to be confused with Self).