Applied Recovery

Somebody hit my parked car last night without leaving a note. Upon discovering the scratched and dented fender, the first feeling on my mind was anger. Without hesitation, it became the basis for my share at a meeting. The 12-step recovery program gives me a chance to go to a meeting and get out of my head. Left alone with the feeling of anger will surely seed the dreaded mental state of resentment. Trying to find a solution to this undefined problem can be like looking for serenity in an active addict. With that said, the closest model to cope with these life experiences is the recovery program of Crystal Meth Anonymous.

While in recovery, there are a lot of feelings already in my prescription for life. Dealing with feelings of worthlessness, shame, anger, and fear regarding my behavior and wreckage has been paramount to my recovery from crystal meth. It is these same feelings that made my drug use justifiable, in-my-mind, and fueled my fuck-everything-and-run attitude. Before recovery this behavior became my reaction to almost all of my life circumstances even though nothing could be changed. Crossing into recovery, having clearly defined and untangled these feelings about my past behavior, they still remain relevant to my maintenance because I still have the same feelings today. The response to life events can still trigger the same deep feelings from my early addict behavior. Being in recovery gives me the ability to be aware when events trigger my old unjustified feelings.

Calling my sponsor and attending a meeting was the first action in my recovery program following a major trigger such as this hit-and-run. Working through my feelings involves writing them down and carefully looking at them to sort the distortion from the gratitude. There was gratitude in this circumstance because it wasn’t me doing the damage. The car damage was caused through no action of my own. My conscience remains clear today. With that declaration, there was a chance for me to move quickly into forgiveness. Forgiving the person who caused the damage to my car can best be described as forgiving myself during my addict behavior. I forgive them because I need to be forgiven for doing destructive things, in a similar fashion.

Finding forgiveness and gratitude among tough circumstances are examples of applied recovery. Overcoming my addiction remains paramount.

Grgr