I Started Recovery to Add Days to My Life. That’s Not Why I Stay In Recovery, Though.
I saw an interesting cycling quote a while back that had to do with quality of life on two wheels. I loved the quote and started tinkering with it to relate it to recovery but it didn’t work in its original form. It was a little off. A little short of the mark. Here’s the quote:
I don’t ride a bicycle to add days to my life. I ride to add life to my days.
Now, if we apply that same quote to recovery; I didn’t find recovery to add days to my life, I found recovery to add life to my days, it doesn’t quite work. Adding days to my life was exactly what I was aiming for when I quit drinking and doing drugs and started working a program of recovery. I also wanted to add days to my life outside of a jail cell, but let’s not get too lost in the weeds, here! Moving on…
There’s more to recovery than just adding days, though. Adding days to life changed over time. As I got more out of my life in recovery, my gratitude increased exponentially and I found a peace and contentment, happiness really, I didn’t know was achievable. As I grew in the program from noob to yearling, yearling to long-timer, and long-timer to old-timer, I’ve come to the understanding that I keep coming back because I want to see just how good life can be – to see just how “happy” happy really is. Applied correctly to recovery, this is how the quote has to read:
I got into recovery to add days to my life. I stay in recovery to add life to my days.
Anybody can quit drinking without working at it if they’re desperate enough. I work at recovery so I can have the best, most enjoyable life possible. You can call me a fool for working a program if you wish. I’ll live. What you can’t do is argue results. Mine are fabulous, and that’s why I keep coming back.
Recover hard, my friends. That light at the end of the tunnel is sweet, glorious sunshine when we do.
Government 101…Because Six Face Diapers are ALWAYS Better Than Two, And Other Fun Sciencey Stuff
I saw about a dozen knuckleheads outdoors this last weekend wearing masks… with a decent breeze blowing, under inescapably awesome sunshine. It’s sad, really, the number of people who are so intent on virtue signaling that they run around with those stupid things on their face counter to all science, but there you have it.
On the other side of that coin, I also love the new lace and invisible masks almost as much as I dig the old “mask under the nose rendering it utterly useless” trick. The lace mask, I get; it’s a literal “F— U” and there’s nothing I like more than flipping the bird at the so-called “rule makers”.
Now, I have no clue who the blonde is but she’s clearly a tool (the photo was released by the Governor’s office, she’s, humorously enough, on the right in the photo). I have no love for our governor, but now that she’s chosen to relinquish her Darth Mutter role to “save lives” at the expense of her real job, protecting freedom first, she’s managed to enact at least one policy I can get behind (I’m not holding my breath for a second). Also, if you look at her “tweets” about mask wearing, she was fairly cool about it. The gist was, “Look, wear a Trump mask for all I care, just please wear a mask”.
Getting back to the point of the post, I had to laugh when the powers that be came out a while back and suggested we should be wearing two masks instead of one and some people actually bought that. My natural reaction was, well if two are better than one, why stop at two? Six are obviously better than two. This follows along the minimum wage argument; if $15 an hour will cure all that ails us, why not go $20? How about $25? or $35? Why do you have to aim so low? If raising the minimum wage will help, why not go big?
Here’s the dirty little secret: because it won’t help. Raising the minimum wage hurts. Raising the minimum wage kills jobs and unless you’re an economics dunce, you know this. Politicians who use the minimum wage to divide us into the haves and have nots know this but won’t admit it. What politicians are trying to come up with is a figure that will get workers more money but not kill so many jobs the disastrous results (including the obvious inflation tied to artificially raising wages) are evident or obvious… or at least obvious enough the sucky results can’t be blamed on Republicans.
So ask yourself, “If two masks are better than one, why not wear six?” And that concludes this lesson in Government 101.
Fit Recovery 