When a person decides to check out one of the “Anonymous” programs out there on their own accord for some addiction they’ve been suffering from, they’re usually pretty badly broken and tend to initially place their recovery from that addiction as the top priority in their life. Unfortunately, that frequently changes once they start feeling better, as then they become inclined to place their recovery work second to the rest of their life.
I’ve found the key to preventing this and having a successful recovery is to ALWAYS place my recovery work first, rather than trying to squeeze it into my life somehow. What that typically translates into is maintaining a weekly schedule of the meetings I’ll be attending, the sponsees I’ll be working with, the calls I’ll be making to healthy sober individuals, and any other sobriety-based volunteer opportunities I’m committed to going to.
This wasn’t always the case though…
In my first few years of recovery, I commonly let my ego control what was most important, which in turn regularly led to me refusing sponsorship opportunities with others because I didn’t want to make my life too busy. Sometimes it led to me skipping my home group because I wanted to hang out with someone I found attractive. Other times I’d refuse to take on any position in my home group so that I didn’t have to be tied down to going there if something more important came up elsewhere. And as for any of those times where I planned on going to places where I would speak about my recovery, I repeatedly cancelled for the slightest of reason whether it was due to the weather, or a sniffle, or a friend wanted to go hang out, or for whatever other infinite number of reasons I came up with. I’m sure you get the point. The bottom line was that all the things that represented my recovery were always being placed on a back burner to plenty of other things that I felt were far more important to my life.
But what most people don’t realize, like I didn’t back then, is anytime you do this, making everything a greater priority over the recovery work, that there’s a good chance you’ll end up losing whatever it is that was given a higher priority.
Here are three examples:
That amazing new intimate relationship that seems so perfect is placed first in your life. Eventually it becomes toxic though, as the toxicity in you that’s not being worked on in recovery oozes to the surface and poisons the relationship, leading to its utter demise.
That great paying job that feels like you’ve finally arrived is placed first in your life. Eventually it becomes in jeopardy though, as all the restless, irritable, and discontent parts of you begin to surface more and more seeing that you’re not focusing on working through any of them in recovery, leading to you being fired or quitting.
Your great group of close friends and the things you do with them are placed first in your life. Eventually they begin to distance themselves from you though, as your constant negativity and resentments pervade every conversation because you’re not working on removing any of them in recovery, leading to you being completely alone.
I could go on, seeing that I faced each of these situations over the years and more, for all the times when I built my recovery around my life, instead of my life around my recovery.
You see, it’s living a life of recovery that makes all those wonderful things possible such as a holding a great job for a long period of time, remaining in a beautiful partnership for years, or having an incredible group of loving friends that last. But when one places their recovery program second to the many good things that life can bring, the result is rarely a good one. And while it may not appear to be that exciting to stay active in a recovery program for an addiction for the rest of your life, the alternative, that being the possibility of losing all those good things in life, and potentially heading straight back into the addiction itself, doesn’t seem all that alluring, does it?
That’s why I’m grateful to God for learning this simple recovery principle of building your life around your recovery and not your recovery around your life, as it truly has made my life far more stable then when my recovery came second to everything else.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
