This photo is so sweet and reminds me of how my recovery works.
This plant coming up out of a crack between the street and stucco wall is called a “volunteer.” There is a pot with luscious soil and that same plant flourishing in it not a foot away. This little volunteer, pushed up through the crack with minimal soil and little chance of it growing there. It was determined, despite the odds—accepting it’s conditions, admitting it was powerless over where the seed landed—sprouting in what seemed like unmanageable circumstances.
Wow.
This is Step One: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.”
I learned that what I resist, persists. Think about it. If I resist something, I have an adverse reaction—resistance. It causes me to think about it and mull it over and over in my head. I don’t get resolution about it, causing it to persist, until I release control over that situation. Admission that I am powerless over it is the first step.
This is how it was with my drinking for years. I resisted loved ones’ concerns for my excessive drinking and pushed back, “I don’t have a problem. It’s under control.” So, my condition persisted.
Definition of resist: to exert force in opposition
Definition of persist: to continue to do something or to try to do something even though it is difficult or other people want you to stop
Now—I am like the flower in the hardscape. I volunteer to show up for my recovery, despite the hard conditions or circumstances that come up in my life. I am not resisting anymore or finding reasons or excuses to hide and escape from things that are hard. Or, people who are difficult. I am not resisting others’ concerns or for help they may want to give me. I have a chance of resolving it and responding in a healthy way and flourishing in my life—but, I can’t do it alone.
If I can do this life sober, so can you.
I am not saying it’s easy but it is simple. Like the flower metaphor, there are people, close by beckoning us to plant into the rich soil of a sober life, to live and to flourish among others like ourselves.
Ask for help—from others and from God.
It starts with you.
Then, volunteer to show up and help somebody else.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Matthew 7:7
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