Facing life with a clear mind, heart, and conscience is amazing yet can be difficult at first, but with practice, action, willingness, and help from a Twelve-Step program as well as supportive family services, along with the determination to do the same (healthy) activities in recovery you did beforehand, it is definitely possible.
In fact, it is promised that if I practice honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, as well as a dose of humility, I will be amazed by my new life.
H.O.W.
- Honesty
- Open-mindedness
- Willingness
From what I have learned so far, humility is not thinking less of myself but thinking of myself less. I gain humility by first being honest and admitting my powerlessness over the disease, then becoming open to new ideas about living, and finally becoming willing to do the 12 Steps and get into action.
The 9th Step Promises state that, “If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them,”.
To those who are experiencing early recovery or are thinking about learning how to live a happy, joyous, and free lifestyle without the use of substances and numbing out, I will share my experience, strength, and hope with you in this article.
Each year as I approach my sobriety anniversary, I cannot help but reflect on not only what I was like before recovery, but what I was like in the early days with all of the “firsts.” For example, during early recovery I was determined to continue to participate in the following interests – sober:
- Take my boat out on my lake all season long
- Go to a Detroit Tigers baseball game
- Play in my yearly softball league
- Swimming
- Vacation with my family, my best friend, and her family at their cottage Up North
- Go camping across beautiful Pure Michigan at State Parks, and in the Huron-Manistee National Forest
- Go on a kayaking trip on the Au Sable River with my family
- Go on a picnic
- Watch fireworks during the Fourth of July
- Enjoy my birthday and Mother’s Day (Sobriety date is May 1st, birthday is the 13th, and Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May)
- Host campfires on my deck with my sons and their friends
- Go on a road trip to visit my out-of-state friend who was battling cancer
- Spend a lazy afternoon fishing off the dock
- Attend a local outdoor concert or summer festival
- Take a scenic drive along Lake Huron or Lake Michigan’s shoreline
- Host a backyard cookout with friends and family
- Experience a summer sunset over the lake
- Plant and cultivate a garden
Adhering to the H.O.W. of it all was and continues to be the recipe to do all of these activities sober. Also, going to meetings, working with others, service work, working the Steps to the best of my ability and learning that I am not God/Creator of the Universe/Great Spirit is key.
What is humility in recovery
Humility in my recovery program is an essential component to help me break free from the bondage of self. I am no longer consumed by my plans, my wants, and my objectives. On the contrary, I get to be freer when I am focused on service to others, in all of my affairs, though I never thought that was possible. It works when I work the Steps; it really does.
The National Library of Medicine discusses humility and recovery noting that, “Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) offers a live stage to study how humility is worn by thousands for another day of sobriety and more freedom from the bondage of self. It has been the coauthors’ intent to emphasize the significance of humility as a cardinal virtue across the 12-Step program and as essential to all its key elements.
…‘an accurate’ sense of one’s abilities and achievement, a nondefensive willingness to see oneself including strengths and limitations, openness to new ideas, keeping a low focus on the self, and affirming the value of all people and the different ways they contribute to our world. A self-disparagement or contemptuous attitude toward the self is to be avoided, as is an over-estimation of the value of self in relation to others.
We assert that in AA humility is a virtue within a wider community that encourages the well-being and care of the self and celebrates achievements on the path to sobriety. It is a positive humility that serves as antidote to destructive belittlement of self or others. Such humility includes love of self, but only the love of the right and true self that is situated within the framework of meaningful community and a Higher Power.
Humility is contrary only to love of the wrong self, the self-inflated being who relates to others merely insofar as they contribute to the narrow narcissistic agendas of the self, and not as independent centers of worth in themselves,”.
What are the three C’s in recovery?
From what I have heard around the “rooms” is that the three C’s of recovery are:
- Choices
- Chances
- Changes
You must make a choice, to take a chance or your life will never change!
From the family side of recovery, the three C’s are:
- Cause
- Control
- Cure
I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, and I can’t cure the disease of alcoholism/addiction.
Facing life with humility
In conclusion, facing life with humility isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it. With honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness, recovery becomes less about surviving and more about truly living — one day at a time.