“A Daily Decision”

Sponsorship is said to be one of the most rewarding parts of the program, and as I keep doing it, I discover new truth to that statement. One of the guys I’m working with is actually dealing with a lot of the same issues that I am right now. We’ve talked about how he doesn’t quite get the ‘hope thing’. I told him about the work I had just done on that very subject. We talk a lot about relationships, commiserating about feeling like we’ll never be able to have a successful one. It’s kind of neat how in sync we are sometimes. I get to let him know that he’s not alone in what he’s dealing with. I get to see that for myself. And I get to pass on what I have learned and see how it’s helpful to someone else.

Earlier, he called me up to say how he’s started making a daily decision to work at not being insane. I smiled. I told him I was proud of him and how great it was for him to get to that place. After all, it is the ultimate point of working the program of Recovery.

Being sober is only the beginning. As we accumulate time, the obsession to use falls away. At first, we make a daily decision not to put in. Sometimes, though, people aren’t quite ready to fully give themselves over to the program. Maybe they are unwilling to admit their lives are unmanageable. Maybe they’re still addicted to the chaos and insanity. Some people really struggle with this part of the disease. Maybe they’re still ruled by fear and are unwilling to let go; the only thing they’ve ever known is the insane up and down and even though they hate it, they’re unwilling to let go of it because it’s easier to stay with the devil they know.

As the obsession to use falls away, we start addressing the real issue: the disease. We start finding new ways of being in the world. We learn to think differently, to act differently. Instead of lying, we begin to be rigorously honest. Instead of being afraid, we learn to be hopeful. Instead of trying to control, we start having faith that we are guided.

Recovery is about so much more that just living clean and sober. It’s about learning a way of life that works. The rewards are beyond our wildest dreams, but we have to do the work to get them. It can be frustrating. The pace of change, the apparent lack of progress. And even in sobriety there is an easier, softer way that is tempting. We can switch our drug of choice; we can find a relationship with someone who we think will ‘save us’. We can find any number of ways to avoid doing the hard work we need to do.

If we chose to avoid those things, if instead we choose--each day--to work the program as best we can, that’s when the rewards come. We get out of it what we put into it. If we don’t work it very hard, we don’t get very much Recovery. If we stop working the program, we go back to being insane. We go back to active addiction. We start traveling back down the road that leads to jails, mental institutions, and death.

Fortunately, we are given a choice. It’s not a choice anyone else can make for us. We have to make it for ourselves each day. Do I want to be sober today? Do I want to turn away from insanity today? For me, the answer is still ‘yes’ to both. Thank God.

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