Some of us living in one day at a time recovery have lived many years not knowing that we are ill. We didn’t see our vulnerabilities. What some of us don’t understand is that the childhood passivity that we had as a child has never left us. We didn’t see that our inability to set boundaries exists to this day is because no-one or few, accepted or accepts them. In this day our frailty is exposed easily and we are dismissed with a whim. It could be because when we were alone and on our own we were taught to accept that scraps and seconds were good enough for us. How could we set boundaries with our providers. The system of meritocracy instills this in us. After all some of us are disabled. We have been since we were children but we grew up to be scorned adults. Nonetheless we have enough self-worth in ourselves to know we are valued by some. After many years of living in recovery some of us realized yes we have an illness and we have tried and still try to be as productive as we can. People who are like us are inextricably positively connected to those we are akin with. We would be surprised what some of us do. It’s a miracle that we can live in recovery and exist in our wonderfully broken and beautifully challenged reality. We have a mental illness. It’s difficult to live with but we can be okay. Now we know. Welcome to life. Peace.
Many people living in one day at a time recovery know the reality of kindness and grace. Without being recipients of kindness and grace many us believe that we wouldn’t be alive today. Kindness, especially kindness with boundaries, has gotten us out of many scrapes and binds. Grace, well grace is a God thing. Should we be able to extend grace to someone we are just extensions of the work of God, the spirit, or the universe. Often such powers work through people. It is not a monopoly extended only to people living with addictions, in recovery from addiction and/or affected with mental health disorders. Grace is extended to everyone and anyone. When we think of kindness we think of the days, the weeks, or the years we have put into practice to strengthen our recovery. We will be kind to others seeking recovery but our boundaries are that they too are seeking recovery. Many of us have spent a lot of time trying to help people who didn’t really want to be helped. We don’t do this begrudgingly but we need to have boundaries. The people who we are helping need to stay abstinent. Otherwise we cannot help no matter how kind we are. Sometimes the kindness thing we can say is that we cannot help them and we suggest that they get outside professional help. This is a necessity for some people. It could be harmful or dangerous to try and do more. This is reality. Grace is a given but we often need to set boundaries to be kind. We have learned this from experience. Peace.
In the reality of living in one day at a time recovery many of us are familiar with club houses, activity centers and retirement homes. These are places we might have been members of or perhaps visited our senior members at from time to time. In club houses there were meetings and games. Sometimes there were breakfasts and dinners. In activity centers some of us participated in the arts. We might have had meals with others. We also might have learned life skills in these centers, and in both places we got to spend time in camaraderie with those we are akin with. As the years go by some of us move into retirement homes because it makes life easier. It’s the reality of living. We are a gathering species that does better in groups. This is the reality of living in recovery. It’s the connection or what we call the inextricable connection with those who seek one day at a time recovery. For the experience of a gathered recovery we are grateful. That’s how it works. Peace.
Many of us who are living in recovery are seeking sanctuary from active addiction one day at a time. We start our day by asking God, the spirit or the universe to help keep us clean, sober or abstinent in order that we may have a day that brings with it the freedom and safety of a day of living in one day at a time recovery. We often call this a day of living grace. Experiencing such grace lets us know such grace is a gift that we all deserve. We understand that this gift is revealed moment by moment and in such moments we understand our reality which is we are meant to live in community not only to take but also to give. In such moments lives are being saved and such moments are the compassion and concern of the living sanctuaries of recovery of freedom from active addiction. We are a part of such realities. Peace.
Many of us who live in recovery are reinventing freedom. We do so by being of service to others and by complying with abstinence one day at a time. When we do this we are free from active addiction and we no longer live in the pain of the bondage to whatever it is that enslaves our beings. Our being was so impaired that we couldn’t see the harm we were doing to others. Such an existence is our greatest pain. Some of us cannot say we don’t have regrets. It’s our reality. We accept this and find freedom in one day at a time recovery. The monkey is off our back. A new life is begun. We have no other option. Those of us living with a mental health disorder need to understand this. In our recovery a new life is begun. One day at a time recovery is our freedom. We take solace in this. Peace.
Many people living in one day at a time recovery get to understand the reality of empathy. We develop the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. When someone is in pain we understand pain and we are willing to sit, listen and if it is required we share a bit of our experience with these people. Often it’s the listening to what is not being said and just sharing time together maybe while just having coffee while solving all the problems of the world. That inextricable bond that recovering people share can be a wonderful, compassionate, and caring part of togetherness. We learn that we are not alone. Although our pain might be silent we know we belong. We know this because we have received empathy from others and we know how to empathize with others. Empathy is the gift of kindness. It saves lives. Peace.
Those of us living in one day at a time recovery feel lucky that we got to surrender. Surrender helped us to understand our brokenness and in this understanding we became healthy enough to think rationally. Our best efforts and best thinking could not make us rational. We were restored to sanity by something more powerful than us and we soon sought to live according to ways we had never lived before which was life was not only about us and getting buzzed or wasted. It was about caring for others. To do so we learned we had to forgive. Not only ourselves but others too. We were learning to be human beings and many years after making such decisions we were still continuing to learn how to be people. We became people who love living. This was a total psychic change for most of us and is a refreshing new reality. We forgive ourselves and we forgive others for being impaired people. We were blind and deaf for many years. When we forgive the wrongs, real or imagined, we no longer need to throw stones. We find an all encompassing freedom for ourselves and others. Peace.
Many of us living in one day at a time recovery got to understand the sins of our parents. What we mean by sins are the imperfections of those who mentored us and fell short of bringing us up in a safe, involved and loving world. We might have even grown up to be adult children of the addicted or our parents might even have been people living with mental health disorders. They might have been traumatized. We might also be people who were victimized and traumatized by others or those who knew no better. Perhaps even walking to school left our lives a mess because of the violence or aggression in our neighborhoods. The reality for some of us was we grew up to live with addictions and mental health disorders and such cycles continued living on in us. This is the reason that many of us surrendered seeking recovery. In our search for recovery we understood our parents. We also understood that most people we grew up around were doing the best they could. We became resilient in our one day at a time recovery. We became healthier people and we got to understand broken reality. We became survivors. Recovery does that to us. Reach out. Peace.
Most people living in one day at a time recovery realize how important it was for us when we got to surrender. Surrendering meant we no longer had to fight the battle of trying to control what ever it was that gave us ill-lasting effects even though our intentions had been to get pleasure. The pleasure it gave us was short-lived, if at all. And the ill-lasting effects owned us. The phenomenon of craving was something we were certain to experience. We hit our bottoms using when we were using when we didn’t want to and we were also spending money that we didn’t have. Many of us found abstinence in a controlled environment. We surrendered to the idea that we would never be able to control our usage and that for us to use was to die. We would wage battle with it no-more one day at a time. Addiction had kicked the crap out of us. We called out to God, the spirit or the universe – and we reached out to others in recovery. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and that our lives were a mess. We started to believe that something greater than us could stop our irrational or insane thinking and we decided to let some form of a higher power (God, the spirit or the universe) be our guide. Our reality became if we needed professional help we got it. We got to experience the beginning of the journey of one day at a time recovery. We got to surrender. Peace.
Some of us who are living in one day at a time recovery are people who live with mental health disorders. Some of us function at times well enough that those who are close to us and people we associate with don’t often get to see that there are times that we are unwell or for lack of a better term mentally ill. When this happens some of us are lucky enough that those close to us practice acceptance, patience and concern. Our reality is we are in struggle and in that struggle we are doing the best we can but the struggle goes on. It’s our reality. Give us time. And keep on loving us. That is what really matters for we cannot help but to keep on loving you. Many of us know the reality of one day at a time recovery but struggle is struggle. That’s our reality when we are ill. We cannot just put a bandage on it. We live it. Give it time. Peace.