Robert is the Recovery Guy. Getting clean and sober on April 25, 1986 has given me the insight and practical skill set to not only stay sober, but to also re-invent myself to the person I always wanted to become. Showing others how to do this is my life goal.
In this episode, Robert shares his experience, strength, and hope in an AA Speaker Meeting. Robert talks about his 35 years of personal recovery and what he believes others need to follow to attain live long sobriety.
I need to surround myself with people who are going in the same direction that I have decided to go into. As stated, “water seeks its own level.” Maybe you have heard something to the effect of “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Both are true. If I am a person of action who decides to see myself in a positive light, I am more likely to be attracted to others who strive for the same thing.
As I grew in my personal recovery so did my desire to become “normal.” When we consider the word normal and set it side by side with the word sober, they seem to go hand in hand.
Accountability simply means that I am subject to the obligation to report, explain or justify something. It means I am answerable. Once again for things that are outside of me that are part of what I do not who I am this is rather easy to do because it’s not personal. So many of us are answerable or we have an obligation to fulfill a particular commitment or process regarding our work.
If there was anything more valuable than this three-word phase I don’t know what it would be. So many of us come from a place where we have worn out our welcome long before they finally asked us to leave. The last thing anyone would consider to be a logical request would be to ask me to come back.
I was willing to do anything to have what they had and to become what I saw them becoming. Surrender to win was the path I decided. I hope you decide on this path as well.
We are NEVER alone anymore. This is what recovery offers us. So, when you choose what recovery path choose wisely. Choose a plan that gives you back to power to choose to wear your shell on your back. A path that has a provision to stay recovered for the rest of your life. A path that doesn’t require me to look backward at my past (except when helping someone). When we do this, we can live the absolute that our recovery is a journey for our lifetime. Here are 3 things I must do to ensure this is true for me.
Stay grounded in the truth that set me free
Be open to adding new elements to my plan
Pray for and assist others along the way
Doing these things will add to the absolute position I decided to take. Thanks for listening and be blessed.
There was no way to get to the goal of sobriety and lifelong recovery without accessing that through others who came in before me and those who would come after me. It became a paradigm shift for me and my recovery. The more I have become well, the more I examine this notion in every conceivable area of life. When I find myself not rooting for a person’s success the first thing I check is my ego. I ask myself, what is it about their success that threatens you and the success you hope for?
Do you remember as a child all the games that you would play with friends, brothers, and sisters if you had him? We would play games like Ring Around the Rosie, Duck-Duck-Goose, Tag, and Dodgeball. Most of these games could be played with a varying amount of people. For some of the games, too many kids would pose a problem in other games, not enough kids would pose an equal problem. One of the games that were most popular was Hide and Seek.
When we first arrive in recovery we are questioning many things. We are questioning if we’re making the right decision. We are questioning will this work for me. We are questioning if follow through with the path we decided to try.
In order to give freely we must first take down the walls of personal secrecy and begin to share who we are and not judge what we learn about others. As a word of caution, let me say with some things we may need to be careful to whom and what we disclose, but for the most part we should feel free to “share our experience, strength and hope with each other”.
I think this is at the heart and soul of what mindset recovery is all about. We need, to the best of our ability, to remove and separate the emotion so we can make the best objective decisions in the forward movement of our lives. Because we are human beings that live, breathe and move in an emotional and spiritual space we cannot negate the emotion and how we conduct our personal life. That is not recommended nor desired, but it should not preclude us from having a rational response to that.