I hope wherever you are, you know Recovery is with you right where you are.
Recovery values tradition, customs, authority, boundaries, and morality. These “boxes” give us the security, continuity, predictability, impulse control, and ego strength we need before life’s messes show up.
The Twelve Steps provide a healthy structure for us. They help us grow up naturally and become more whole. In many ways, they help us grow more peacefully than when we try to “build Recovery ourselves.”
Richard Rohr, in his book Falling Upward, writes, “Without law in some form, and also without butting up against that law, we cannot move forward easily and naturally.”
We need strong boxes to hold the cargo and contradictions that come into our lives. We need a strong ego foundation before we can learn to let go of our ego. Sometimes we need to struggle with the Twelve Steps for a long time before genuine healing begins.
We enter Recovery by living within external values for a period of time. We “cuddle up” against them until they become part of who we are. Over time, this builds a strong self that can freely live the Twelve Steps—and eventually learn to “die to ourselves.”
Too many of us have lived jaded and defeated lives because we tried to give up a self that was not yet ready. We cannot let go of something we have not first learned to build healthily.
During the first half of my Recovery, I spent time and effort letting go of my external cargo. I began to embrace the values of Recovery so I could release the burdens I had carried for so many years.
When I first began applying the Twelve Steps, it took time for them to move from my mind into my heart and soul. For thirty years or more, achievement, perfectionism, and the pursuit of success had stoked my ego and shaped how I saw myself and the environment around me.
Now in the second half of my Recovery, I am experiencing the construction of my inner life. The Twelve Steps are the glue holding my Recovery together. They give me a foundation as I move from simply changing my outer life to transforming my inner life.
I say the following with compassion and love for all of us: If we remain in the protected first half of life beyond its natural season, we can become a well-masked narcissist or an adult infant. Both can appear successful on the outside while remaining undeveloped on the inside.
Archimedes, the Greek inventor, said, “You must have both a lever and a place to stand before you can move the world.”
Perhaps this is the definition of Recovery. We need a strong place to stand before we can move into the deeper work of our lives. The first half of Recovery gives us a jumping-off point. The second half invites us to solidly land and build upon our early Recovery experiences.
With God’s grace, we do not have to remain where we began. We can grow, mature, and become the person we were created to be.
Remember, Recovery is happening right now, in this moment.