While I was still practicing my addiction, I lived in my "me" house -- and what a mess it was! That home, that body-and-mind that I thought of as "myself," stank. It was full of the broken-down furniture of my resentments, my selfish goals, of the refuse of the ego-driven actions I'd taken over the years that had had such terrible consequences for me and everyone I came into contact with; the roof leaked and the windows were cracked and seemed to expose me to all the painful elements of a hostile world; and because it had never been cleaned, little or no light came into it.

After some years in recovery, I started to feel much better about the old place. Nicely furnished, in great repair, relatively few maintenance problems -- my "me" house was looking in great shape.

Then came Steps 10, 11 and 12, and after a while I started to suspect that there wasn't a "me" house at all -- that, no matter how wonderful it looked, it had always been an invention of mine to keep me separate and safe from a universe I could not understand and was therefore afraid of.

Each day, in meditation, I venture outside my "me" house. It will be a long time, I suspect, before I can quit it altogether, or see it for the illusion that I know it to be in my heart of hearts. But with each day that passes in the sincere practice of Steps 10, 11 and 12, I find myself a little more at home in the world as it actually is, and a little less need to hide in the "me" of my own imagining.