RECOVERY

Copied by permission from a former addict.

Let me break this word RECOVERY down and look at them:

RETURN---    ERASE---   COPE---   OPEN---   VICTORY---   ENDURE---   RESPECT--- and  ---YEARS ………..are a few I came up with.  There may be others.

Return to a life of sanity---           Erase past mistakes---   Cope with new ideals, people, places and things---          Victory over mind alternating substance---    Enduring making baby steps---                  Respect ---something I lost from friends and family---

Years of drunkenness will only be a reminder as to who I WAS.

Recovery will be a never-ending part of my life; now I must become addicted to recovery.  It doesn’t mean I can save the world, or I have all the answers.  Although I might want to recover, everyone may not have my views.  As I look at recovery, there are a lot of things I have to change or recover from.

Recovery from years of drinking to a drunken state of mind.  Believing one more drink in the morning would stop my head from aching.  But that’s not all it did because I would only return to that drunken state of mind once again.

Recovery from marijuana, which in the end only led to munchies and after that it’s time to fire up another one.

Recovery from rock cocaine and its slogan- “one hit is too many and a thousand is not enough”.  I don’t have to put beer, wine, liquor, pot and rock cocaine into my body at one time to have fun.

Recovery from means I don’t have to be broke every pay day.  I can stop working for the dope man.  Stop lying to myself, “I won’t do that again”…Next week spend all the money I work all week for to pay bills.  I don’t have to spend my last twenty dollars I hide in my wallet, glove compartment in my car, under the floor mat, where is it?  I don’t have to hide from my family or my children.

Recovery means I don’t have to worry about left-over, picking up women that have been on the corner all night or two to three days.  Not knowing if it is a she a he or a he-shee.

Recovery means, no more “your hit is bigger than mine”.  My hit wasn’t as big as yours.  I won’t have to worry about whose turn it is to hit or how long are you going to hold the weed?    Pass it on.  I won’t have to worry about being robbed or ripped off because a dealer is now smoking and just smokes all of his profits away.

Recovery means my thumb will no longer have to be bruised from striking my lighter or burnt trying to get that last toke off that joint.

Recovery means I no longer have to worry about getting any ridge out of my stem of my bowl and cooking it up.  Where are the plate, alcohol and razor blade?

Recovery means I don’t have to drive down the road with one eye on the road, two eyes in the rearview mirror, moth twisted, thinking a car is following me every time I pass a street light.

Recovery means every time a dealer says let’s go pick up I don’t have to go or let my car go just for a h it.

Recovery means, I am somebody.  I don’t have to be treated like a nobody.  I have the right to chose not to use.

Recovery means to learn from my mistake, enough is enough.

Recovery means to me I look at what got me here today long and hard, in and out, I look at it over and over again.

For real for real recovery means I can be a father for my sons.

Recovery means I have learned something from my past.

Recovery means I won’t have to keep coming back behind chicken-wire fences with razor wire on top of them.

Recovery means I don’t have to worry about that friend tomorrow.  Will he turn me in to save himself, if he was given the choice?

Recovery means I can be a citizen and not a number.

Recovery means a lot of different things to different people.  So think about this- if it isn’t what got you here, why do you want to keep coming to places like this?  What is it that keeps you coming back to places like this with chicken-wire fence with razor-wire top?