[freya]

THE PROMISES

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. -- pp. 83-84 Alcoholics Anonymous

Sounds like quite a gift to me!

I guess I see it like this -- the gifts of recovery are things that we "get," not because we deserve them or are owed them, but simply because we "show up" and demonstrate our openness and our willingness to receive them by doing certain things, taking certain actions, trying to live a certain kind of life, etc... Personally, I do this within the context of working a 12 Step Program -- but I certainly don't believe that that is the only way that it can be done.

What I do believe is that the gift of real recovery and the ability to experience one's recovery as a gift comes from working one's recovery, not just on the physical level, but also on the emotional and spiritual levels. If one tries to give up one's drug-or-obsession of choice but does not do anything to effectively address the self-centeredness and the emotional & spiritual wounding/isolation that that drug-or-obsession masked and medicated, then it only makes sense that one would experience one's "non-using" state (which, IMO, should never be equated with "sobriety" or "recovery") as a terribly painful (and probably, ultimately, unbearable) burden.

freya