5. REFLECTION

I think the recovery process comes in stages. In looking back, I don’t remember all of them. My last post was about being in the present moment.  That too, is a process.  Some moments I’m present, on track and living in gratitude.  Others not so much.  I think it also has to do with the stages in your life.  In early sobriety, I was on an emotional roller coaster.  Not having alcohol or other substances to block the emotions made it a very painful.  I was grieving something I had been relying on for 39 years.

 I just read We are the Luckiest by Laura McKowan.

It brought me back to when I was new. I sometimes forget about many of the emotions until I read about them or hear another person’s experience shared at meetings. The book was a very real reminder for me. Early on, I do remember staring at the slogans at meetings, Don’t Drink, Keep Coming, etc. and that was the best I could do.

This quote from Laura McKowan was so impactful to me “Sobriety forced a closeness to myself and to life that was at first excruciating.  It burned, but in the ashes from burning all the things I was not, I found her, I found me.  And then I could finally be found by others.”

I had been running from myself for 39 years, I didn’t know who I was.  There were so many versions of me, and I could not continue this destructive way of life. One night I was very drunk and I finally said it, “I must be an alcoholic” and we all know once we admit that to ourselves and another person, you can’t take it back.

I have found myself through the pain, my commitment to the 12 steps of AA and Peer Recovery.  I am becoming the woman I was meant to be and through this process I am “finally being found by others”.  In recovery we are discovered.

Where are you in your process?