The beginning of the recovery process is tricky and fraught with difficulty in sticking around long enough to emerge from the din of addiction. After that, we have to make it through the haze, the fog, the mist, and finally the overcast before the clouds finally start to part. Being an impatient lot, the pull to escape is the battleground in our melon.

However, if we can work through that we’re rewarded for the effort. Shortly after the 9th Step is begun, we feel a peace we didn’t know was even attainable… and this after the 5th step that lifts the weight of addiction off our chest. We are finally free, and life is good. We find that sticking with it, one day at a time, has changed us completely.

Then we work with others and pass on what we’ve learned. And we find peace and contentment… and the whole point of the Twelfth Step: I’m not the same person I was when I started.

We change our focus from the self-centric to helping others. Once we get out of ourselves and find that we’re of good use to the world, well, the experience mustn’t be missed.

Then we practice the principles in everything we do… and we become good at that.

The clouds part and the sun shines down and we can bask in the glorious light. We find that life got immeasurably better while we weren’t watching. We realize we no longer need to “keep coming back”, we want it.

And life gets better. It gets so good we think it can’t possibly get any better… then we realize it does, all on its own.

We realize the miracle has happened and we don’t quite know what’s next but we look forward to it. When did it happen that I stopped dreading what would happen next? When was it I stopped worrying about the other shoe dropping? I can’t recall, but it happened… and I know why it happened! If a shoe drops, I know exactly what I will have to do:

I pick it up.

Recover hard, my friends. It does work if you work it, and for that I am grateful.