Recovery Commandos

A woman shared about how she began to be troubled by a few little things, a few little problems, that she thought she really needed to handle on her own. They were private things, a bit embarrassing, and really no big deal. She began by not talking about the problems, and she continued by cutting down on meetings and isolating herself from her sponsor and others in the program. Using only the contents of her own head she found the answers her dragon was looking for. That she made it back to the program without using made her one of the lucky ones.

“I’ve given up being a recovery commando. If addiction was a problem I could handle by myself I would have handled it years ago.” I’ve heard this at meetings and I try to remember it every time I find myself tempted to boogie with my disease. Often, however, the dragon leaves me with a very selective memory. It’s important for me to remember that there is no problem I have that cannot be cut down to size by sharing it with someone else in the program. At a meeting, over the telephone, together over a cup of decaf, the problems get cut in half and the joys become doubled. When I share, more often than not I find that the thing that’s deviling me is really a nonproblem. As an old-timer once said, “I’m an old man. I’ve lived a long time and had many problems, most of which never happened.”

Today’s Meditation from:

Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Recovery Meditations for Hard Cases by Barry L.