Many people living in one day at a time recovery either carry or carried a heavy load in regards to the realities and the non-realities of living our lives as human beings. Our realities are we try to carry the heaviness of life all by ourselves. As hard as we try to face our realities alone, we find aloneness is or should be a non-reality for recovering people. For some of us the heaviest load we carry is the noise in our own minds. We need to invite someone in to help us navigate through the realities and non-realities of life. Many of us have sought guidance from empathetic individuals who have been trained to help people deal with the heavy loads of being people. Perhaps then we will learn that too much aloneness can bring with it a fair amount of toxic thinking. In all humility we have been gifted with the reality of one day at a time freedom. Peace.
Many people living in one day at a time recovery understand the reality of being ransomed. People protect us and offer us safe environments in which we can experience one day at a time abstinence. In recovery’s reality we will eventually get to understand we had actually paid quite a price to hit a time in our lives where we knew we just had to stop. We lost the freedom of living healthy, adjusted and doable lives. Our pain was so abundantly immense that not only did we hurt ourselves but we also hurt our loved ones and those around us too. Time after time we were rescued and ransomed from the mess that we had made of our lives. When we cried out for help and when we finally realized how desperate we really were we realized the reality of total abstinent as being the only way to freedom from active addiction. In as such we knew that we needed support and we joined the rooms of recovery. In doing so we discovered that we had paid our dues. Then we learned that now we had to pay our own ransom and we had to pay for the ransom of others. Everyone does this in the rooms. We all keep each other free from the bondage of active addiction. We ransom each other. It’s part of being inextricably connected to the other. Peace.
Many people living in one day at a time recovery understand the reality of wanting to be of value in helping others to find the reality and the freedom of one day at a time recovery. This is the usual want of people who are fairly new to recovery (less than a year of abstinence). We call this the beginner’s picture. It happens to us because of our gratitude and the need to pay it forward. There is a fair amount of recovering people who become professionals who help people with our disorders find one day at a time wellness. This is the extension or fruition of the beginner’s picture. They’re a living legacy of one day at a time recovery. Many of them do this for many, many years. The rest of us – we’re grateful for them. They’ve helped save many lives. Peace.
Many of us living in one day at a time recovery know the reality of taking precautions to protect our recovery. An analogy of such action is when we are going outside when it might rain we take an umbrella. Recovery is like that too. When we are being exposed to substances we take precautions. One of these precautions is to have a supportive person who will have our backs in such situations come with us. We must guard our recovery like our lives depend on it. It does. Our reality, our freedom, and our peace of mind are at stake. We must stay dry. Peace.
Many of us who are getting older in one day at a time recovery have to face the reality of although we are in recovery, recovery doesn’t turn us into pinnacles of society and ever courageous examples of sober living itself. We still live with the fears, and sometimes the setbacks of fallible living, misgiving thoughts, and the inability to live up to our unrealistic expectations of ourselves as we slowly grow into the reality of our own lives which is we were flawed people and will continue to be so until the day we die and they throw dirt in our face. This is the reality and the freedom of imperfection which makes us worthy of grace and in grace we become content. What else could we do? Acceptance becomes our greatest gift. It sets us free. Peace.
Many of us living in one day at a time recovery after a year or two of recovery believed we were capable lassoing the moon. Such delusions put us in touch with our own grandiose spiritual superiority or should we say our egoic imaginings. The funny thing is people fairly new to recovery believed in us too. The people who had been around for many years – well – they told us to keep our feet on the ground. Years later we understood what they meant. Those who we called old-timers were supportive to us when our feet were on the ground. They told us to keep our eyes on the prize which was to stay abstinent and practice living in recovery just one day at a time. And some of us did. We did funny things like we kept going to meetings in the rooms of recovery. We became humble and did such things like letting go of any notion of spiritual superiority or our whims of being chosen. We accepted we were neither over or under any other people. We strived to be a part of even with our mistaken notions and our peculiar peculiarities. And we learned to listen to everyone. Many marvelous things did happen and would happen to us. We also had and will have our struggles. We begin to understand life. Our feet are on the ground. Peace.
Most people living in one day at a time recovery have felt and witnessed the beauty of gratitude. Reality is the joy of thank you. We feel and get to see gratitude in the appreciation of a God moment which can be a gift, an experience or an act of love which we are a recipient of or a witness to. It might even have been us who God, the spirit or the universe worked this moment through. Some call it a blessing – some call this moment an act of grace. A good many of us have been recipients of such acts. We in all humility know the reality of gratitude. What we feel, and what we understand is that our fall, our bottom or our difficulties initiate the reality of our one day at a time recovery. And we are so grateful for our recovery. In our humble reality we get to see grace. We get to see love. We can also be blessed. And we are so grateful when we have the opportunity to be a part of such God moments for others. For all of this we just want to say thank you! Peace.
Most people living in one day at a time recovery make the simple acknowledgements of needing the help of God, the spirit, or the universe to stay living and participating in this gift called recovery. We might say something like, “God I need your help to be and to stay in recovery and I humbly ask you to help me.” Most of us precede such a request with the acknowledgement of, “Thank you God.” We also acknowledge that there are many people who have helped and still help us to navigate our journeys of recovery and we acknowledge the love, compassion, care and concern they had given to and still give to us. We acknowledge we live in recovery because of their grace. Peace.
People living in one day at a time recovery eventually get to understand that our fear, and our pride, will eventually teach us a lesson that reminds us of the humility that we uncovered when we first saw the mess that addiction brought to our lives humbling us in all the realities of becoming a recovering person. We knew we needed help because we recognized the troubles that had come into our lives and we just wanted the pain to end. Pain is what brings us into recovery. Once in recovery, even after many years of recovery, we recognize pride and fear are still, and always will be, a part of our lives. Because of this we learn we are not perfect but we do find a realistic balance of humility while in recovery. We know we have much to learn as we awaken into humanness. We’re experiencing grace. Peace.
Some people who are fairly new to living in one day at a time recovery are quick to condemn the realities of the ancient old fools who have been in recovery for a long time, as they emphatically tell us that in early recovery we are still living in a fog, and we should probably listen to the experience of others a bit more than the jumbled up thoughts that stumble around in our minds. In our reality though our motto was “nobody is going to tell me what to do”. It’s a sad thing that happens when we alienate ourselves from the wisdom of others, and refuse to listen to common sense of experience. It is our egos that think they can successfully refute the knowledge discovered from years of successful living. After a few years of recovery we learn we were fools. We just had to learn the hard way. It’s common. Peace.