They say it all the time. When you are new in recovery they say hokey things like, “Don’t give up five minutes before the miracle happens...” My response to that was to want to throat punch the fucker who just said that. True story. And one of the first miracles happened for me right then, because I did not in fact lay them out. I solved a lot of my problems with violence back in the day. It was all I knew. Physical manifestations of my emotional dysregulation...that was all I had.
I stuck around long enough to learn that just waking up sober every day was a miracle worth living for, and one that was guaranteed if I did the stupid shit they said, didn’t throat punch people who annoyed me, and just didn’t take that first drink!
Miracles in recovery become commonplace which is the best kind of living there is.
I have a sponsee now whom I adore. She is smart, beautiful, sarcastic and wonderful. The only person that doesn’t know all of this about her, is her. She is married to a man that loves her. Has the love of her children who are good kids. And she has a job where she is able to give back.
Recently, some stuff went down that threatened all of that. This tendril made of steel from her past that was winding itself around her in an ever tightening spiral. She was a mess. She was panicked. Scared. Lost. Terrified and the old self destructive tendencies were activated. She was close to a a drink and a drug many times (likely more times than she let on).
We talked a lot. And I became the broken record “Turn it over.” “Give it to God” “Trust the process.” I am sure SHE wanted to throat punch ME several times.
I knew it would all work out. I told her that she was not allowed to self destruct over the repercussions of her previous self destruction. I told her that she had to level up and persevere and trust. If she could just not drink or drug, it would all work out and she would be fine. I didn’t know how or when, but I absolutely KNEW with every fiber of my being that she was going to be ok and the situation would resolve itself in ways that neither of us could even imagine.
She hired an attorney and began the fight to save her life.
And just like it always happens, the most unlikely and unexpected thing occurred yesterday. The person least likely, but with the total power, came to her aid. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. She had taken right action five years ago when this all went down, and then continued to take right action right up until yesterday when she received word that all of the shit was now handled and over. Just like that. No attorneys or lawsuits. The person with the power chose to use the power for her and eradicated the fight.
She was amazed. She was in tears. She couldn’t believe it. But I did.
And I remember being her, in the beginning, thinking that this whole course of miracles was a bunch of crap designed to sell us on “the program” but that it wasn’t real. Just fancy God marketing designed to get us to choose salvation over desecration. But I stuck around and I learned. It isn’t just a gimmick. It isn’t just a bunch of hooey. It is real. Miracles happen in recovery all the time. And not just that a whole bunch of people that should be dead, aren’t. Not just that people who were the dregs of society are now functional citizens of the world. Stewards of the good life even. That is really just a starting point.
Well, now she knows. That the biggest miracle (her being sober over eight months now) is just the starting point. It is the entry point for all other miracles to happen, every single day. So many things, just work out. We need only believe that there is this benevolence that is greater than us, and be willing to sit as quietly as we can and wait for people, places and things to be moved so that the highest good can occur. And it always will. That isn’t some ridiculous promise, it has been my experience. Repeatedly. For almost 30 years now.
Life takes its twists and turns and feels awfully unfair a great deal of the time. But it always has worked out. I have survived 100% of my bad days and the consequences of my former actions. And I am overpaid on a daily basis. And she is one of the ways I am over paid. Her presence in my life, her trust in me, her sharing the hardest, most painful experiences of her life, her sharing her fear and pain is just another manifestation of life’s everyday miracles occurring in my life. I get to do this. I get to be of service. I get to share that which was freely given to me with her. Creating this life sustaining chain reaction of recovery.
They were right, it is something that I do not want to miss. Not one single day of my life.
Sure the darkness still resides within. It always will. Self destruction will always be my default setting. But years of living with a solution has provided me to always have another choice. Always. I do not have to blow up my life when I am scared, PTSDing or in pain. The darkness will always look more alluring to me, because it feels like I deserve that in some ways, but the longer I live in the sunlight the less the darkness beckons me. It is cold and hollow and offers me nothing that I want anymore. Choosing to stay in solution and the light offers me a life beyond my wildest dreams.
And the best part, the very best part, is that I only get to keep it by giving it away. And by giving it away I get to experience the every day miracles in other people’s lives making my life overflowing with fucking miracles all the damn time. I have come to rely upon them. Not in a “take it for granted” kind of way but instead in a “right action follows right action” always kind of way. They will always come if I work for them. And the work is not drinking or drugging and showing up for my life. Trusting that whatever goodness got me this far is never going to abandon me and that the only way I get to stay here in this place of fucking miracles is to ensure that I make myself available to others who are on the path. Whatever way they need, however I may show up.
Only God could take all the pain, anguish, shame and guilt I have experienced and turn it into something amazing and useful to not only myself, but others too. It is like having the ability to turn shit into platinum. That is what happens in recovery. The old, pathetic life is exactly the decomposition required for the new life to begin.
And today, I am so glad that I was able to get past all my prejudice and anger and resentment and fear to just walk through the fucking door, sit down and remain. Today, it brings me to tears. It is so impossibly simple, and so amazingly beautiful. It is moments like these where I feel the grace in everything I see, touch, do and live. Not just in my life but in the lives of people like her. And she becomes the reason I move forward, trusting that whatever light got me this far, will never let me down. I am not guaranteed a pain-free life...but I am guaranteed a solution that works, always.
Again...still.
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