By: Alison Smela “The ripple effect. You throw a pebble into the water and it creates ripples. Your action was to throw the pebble—the representation of your choice. That’s all that you can control. But not the ripples—those are the consequences of your choice. And that you cannot control.” ― Michele Bardsley Spiritual […]
When we are new in recovery, it’s imperative that we find people who respect and can work with our differences. Whether this is a sponsor, accountability partner, or therapist doesn’t matter.
“It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Today, I’d like to be one of those people who tell you, “If I can do this, so can you.” Recovery works.
By Whitney McKendree Moore “When I first stopped trying to fix other people, I turned my attention to ‘curing’ myself. I was in a hurry to get this healing process over… I looked forward to the day I would graduate from Al-Anon and get on with my life. As year two and year three […]
Learning to Walk in Our Recovery
I then asked them if they would criticize a toddler who stumbled while learning to walk, or if when their children did stumble and fall, did they think, ‘Boy this kid will never walk.’
These questions usually get me some perplexed looks and the standard, “Of course not. Kids have to learn that stuff, and they’re going to fall. They just get back up.”
It’s the same for our recovery.
The more I read, the more similarities that I found between three of the world’s major religions: Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, with what I believe to be the fundamentals of recovery.
The concept of altering or modifying something is just another blessing of recovery. It’s the freedom of choice, something that was lacking in our addiction. This ability to choose allows us to change our old behaviors, attitudes, and actions and begin the process of inner recovery.
Too many of us emphatically say that change is scary, hard, impossible, or out of reach, and we get stubborn, discouraged and stuck.
By: Joy Toro The context of this poem is capturing the mother who is imagining herself the day of her son’s funeral – a torment and a necessary psychological preparation. The day has come I had hoped to not see Dressed in sadness Black lace hides my weary eyes I […]
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could travel into the future, see where you messed up, and then go back in time to rearrange things to make your future better? You can. If you can foresee regret, you can mind travel to the future. If you can train yourself to mind travel effectively, you can intentionally affect your future by doing something about it today.”~Richie Norton
It was at that point that I knew that change was a lifelong job; that it would create fears, uncover aspects of myself that generated and caused embarrassment, but that I would only benefit from my recovery if I went beyond not using to healing the underlying motives that produced negative outcomes in my life.
By: Marilyn L. Davis Recovery Warriors Stick Around ____ “In my experience, people who don’t stick around during the hard times weren’t worth having around anyway.” ― Kimberly Belle, The Ones We Trust I remember my dad talking about fair-weather friends; those who are with us when everything is going smoothly; we’ve got drugs, […]
By: Marilyn L. Davis Moon, Life, and Recovery Phases “When I look over my past, I see that the stages in my life are like the phases of the moon. I’ve had periods where I was the waxing gibbous: fat with wealth and success. There have been other seasons when my happiness […]
