Walking into the rooms of recovery is often the first step to what could become a fundamental change in your life. A change that brings hope, a sense of peace and serenity, and even love. Starting this journey, however, is not just about making a decision to refrain daily from the use of drugs and alcohol. Of course not using drugs or alcohol is required to participate in the rooms of recovery, but the mindset of this change in yourself is something more. It is a decision to show up to do the work that is required to participate in having a meaningful life. Really, it is a conscious choice to invest in yourself by building recovery capital to become the person you were meant to be.

“I DON’T HAVE TO ATTEND EVERY ARGUMENT I’M INVITED TO.”

Alcoholics are naturally argumentative, but Alcoholics Anonymous is a remarkably peaceful program. The reason for this is that Alcoholics Anonymous is built on the experience, strength and hope of its members, rather than resting on doctrine or beliefs. The first draft of the Twelve Steps invited alcoholics to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. The final draft, which was published in the first printing of the first edition, invited alcoholics to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

There has been an important change in the way that many people define relapse and recovery. Twenty years ago, when I started working in treatment, relapse was a sign of failure, a failure with a shared responsibility. It was the alcoholic’s responsibility, in that they had picked up another drink, but it was also a time for the staff to question, “What did we miss? Is there anything we could have done, or done better that could have helped this alcoholic avoid relapse?”