dSober

I think the Big Book understated the case. Recovery is more than restoration to sanity. Recovery seems to be allowing me to move towards a sanity I've never experienced before. A new appreciation of reality I've never appreciated before. A new acceptance, in fact gratitude, that I'll never see or know everything there is to see and know. A new yearning to see ever more. A new yearning to learning, lol.

You?

dSober

Yeah, ok, "yearning for learning".

Nuudawn

I was thinking about the word recovery just yesterday. I was thinking about it's similarity to discovery. Does the "re" rather than the "dis" before "covery" someone indicate regaining something already known? For me, recovery is very much about movement and decision from a place of "spirit" rather than "ego" or "addiction".
I am struggling in "recovery" today. I am awkward and irritable and somehow subject to some nasty internal radio. I think I may have ingested too much caffeine. At one point today, drinking felt like an option.
This unnerved me...
Because more than I want to quit drinking..
I want sobriety. I want to be real and authentic and much more emotionally intelligent...but my emotions were really hard to wrangle today and my best self ..or spirit...seemed awfully weak or passive somehow.
Petulance, immaturity, defeat, negativity were the sovereign gremlins of the day.
I was also afraid.
When thoughts of drinking came to call...I thought about posting a "help"..but I was scared that no one would answer (no idea where that came from...my addiction maybe). I was full of anxiety.
I was overwhelmed with all the unattended things in my life...and I had no idea where to start.
So I started. I just started doing. And what I was doing was very basic things like housework..where self abuse was playing in stereo between my ears...
Eventually...I stopped thinking abusive tear down thoughts..
I got lost in the "doing" I guess.
Thank God.

Recovery is not for the faint of heart.
That much I know.

Eddiebuckle

I think this is what they were talking about when they wrote "our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change."

SoberCAH

For me, recovery means that I can live a fairly normal life without the impairment of chronic alcoholism (at least drunkenness and immaturity).

Boleo

Abstinence is not-drinkin and feeling bad about it.

Recovery is not-drinkin and felling good about it.

I used to use booze to feel good about not dealing with life

Now I use life to feel good about not dealing with booze.

aborkie

Recovery for me is mostly physical, as I did a lot of damage to my body. I'm sure I have the liver of a 60 year old.

desypete

recovery changes over the years
at the start it was a mission to find out more and more

then it became a mission to tell everyone else how to do it my way, i could not be wrong on this as i was clever and not like the bog standard alcoholic, i knew better than them all thanks to my knowledge and wisdom so it was my duty to enforce my wisdom on everyone if they wanted it or not didn't matter lol

today my mission is to just be there if needed, that removes my will on things. its a hell of a journey i wonder what i will think its all about tomorrow ? : )

Pipefish

This one got me thinking, and then tying myself in knots trying to come up with a catch-all. And there it was, there is for me no catch-all. It did remind me of something I got from the philosophy group I go to though, that describes what has happened, and continues to happen, for me in recovery....

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place, but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there.....I still fall in...it is a habit. My eyes are open, I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

I walk down another street

Credited to Portia Nelson

That for me summarises beautifully the 'countless vain attempts' that can apply as much to active alcoholism as it can to living in the habits and patterns I bought with me into recovery which no longer work. Recovery lies in seeing it, and doing something different....after a few knocks usually ;-)