The TRANSFORMATION: An Ongoing process

Honestly this post probably won't make a lick of sense to anyone who isn't recovering from SOMETHING: Addiction, a Divorce, A Death, Loss Of a Job...really anything that is troubling and takes time to get over...Hmm, I guess that SHOULD be most of us, eh?!


Anyway my point is when you are troubled and trying to cope with something it can often dominate your thoughts, feelings, your moods...really your whole life.  Recovering from addiction most certainly dominated my thoughts, feelings, moods...my every move for quite some time. And that has become another bit of an issue because as I have grown, gotten better, more comfortable in my own skin...I have become less dependent on the old recovery routines that were absolutely ESSENTIAL when I first got sober...and for some time (in my case a few years) to come.  I used to spend every day at a gathering of folks in recovery, hanging out, supporting and helping one another but as time has progressed I have moved away  from that every day interaction though I still regularly communicate with many of those folks.


Today I spend much more of my time volunteering at the jail or at the nursing home. Some times working with fellow addicts/alcoholics....this has not always sat well with some of my friends who are still following some of the same daily routines and patterns they have when they first got sober...20 years before. Now that is perfectly fine if that is what they endeavor to get from this wonderful gift of recovery...we each have a choice to live as we wish and that in itself is a great blessing. One of recovery's many gifts is the gift to choose...we have a CHOICE today.


But for me it isn't enough...It is not what I consider living a full life...I look at recovery as what gave me my life back and it is huge part of my life today but not the whole part, there is more...much more. I want the full and vibrant life I know now that I can have and never did have before...and you know what, I do. When I first sobered up I hung around those groups of folks in recovery all day and most of the night because I was afraid that if I didn't...I would revert back to my old ways and start drinking again. But recovery, lived every day to it's fullest should and will bring growth and growth will inevitably bring change.


And it's been an amazing journey, sometimes difficult and sometimes wonderful. It's just unfortunate that no matter what, there are going to be people who have issues with what you are doing. I've been labeled a religious nut, been told I have forgotten where I came from (by some recovery "friends")...actually I think that anyone who reads this blog or knows me personally knows that I am very active, aware and involved in recovery related things in my life...it just that it shares a place with many other aspects of a full and balanced life today...lived one day at a time for HIM.


(Photo: K. Tomson)