The Promises of Recovery

Most anyone who has visited the rooms of twelve step meetings have at least heard of “the promises,” a literary work taken from an outline of the Twelve Steps that in a general way lists occurrences for which those people who faithfully pursue real recovery can have a renewed hope. Simply stated, we can and often will regain most of the truly good things we lost in the days of our active addiction provided we humbly and earnestly pursue the path laid before us.

The timetable for the fulfillment of these promises is usually vastly different than the one we would choose for ourselves, and with good reason. As with most any character trait found in “normies,” impatience is magnified by power of ten (or greater) in addicts; if that impatience were indulged it would be harmful to our sobriety and ultimately our very lives. The slow, measured pace of the great life rebuild we must undergo serves to increase our gratitude and by extension our serenity as we experience the process. Nothing worth having comes easily or quickly.

Imagine the harm of having all of the good things we wasted away during our active addiction laid immediately at our feet after we pick up our 30-day chip. How would we react? It is both safe and fair to assume that we would soon fall back into our old ways of thinking and living and would once again stand to lose everything, which in relapse can often mean our very lives. If it were that simple and easy to repair the years of damage wrought by our selfishness and self-centeredness, we’d most often be found turning quickly back to that way of thinking.

The struggle to gain by honesty and humility those things lost in the maelstrom of addiction is inherently valuable. That we must make that effort is the greatest gift bestowed upon us by our recovery. We learn for the first time the true worth of things (including ourselves) when we come to understand both how they are lost and how they are found. We begin the grasp the depth, width and breadth of our own value through this course of action and emerge from it re-forged by the trial.

No one has ever accurately claimed sobriety for the addict would be easy, but anyone who has truly lived it will attest to the fact that it is more than worth it. There is no shortcut to genuine happiness, no helicopter ride to the top of the mountain or cheat code to skip to the end of the game. That serenity and joy must be gained rightly if it is ever to be kept.

There is truth in the statement that even our worst days sober are better than our best days in active addiction. What makes that statement true? The fact that our days in true sobriety are lived fully, honestly and with our undivided, unabated attention and mental presence. When we are doing it correctly we are right here, right now and there is no place else we would rather be.