“Stephanie, always remember that addiction is the disease of isolation…”
Bill Farley, 1994
I can shut my eyes right now and remember Bill telling me that more than once… as the team sat around the lunch table, or when I was in his office discussing a difficult admission.
You can be certain, Addiction has two goals: one is to get you alone, and to the other is to kill you.
When I am isolated, all of the intellectualization, rationalization, and justification begins to make sense and eventually, becomes the reality. “It is just one time.” “But I deserve it.” “It wasn’t that bad.” My disease tells me these things when I am alone. And without a connection to others, reminding me of the truth and supporting me, it will lead me into a relapse.
So many good things contribute to the quality of personal recovery, like sponsorship, meetings, continued therapy, literature, and over-all wellness. But, perhaps the most important element is simple fellowship. Enjoying relationships with people who understand and can relate to us is crucial.
Because the ability to develop positive relationships can be damaged or absent in those who struggle with addiction, making connections with people who understand where we’ve been, and where we’re headed, is key to long term sobriety. We have heard it again and again when a relapser shares, “I stopped going to meetings,” “I stopped calling my sponsor,” but those reasons simply indicate the same thing, they lost the connection.
Connection goes beyond our circle of friends, our sponsor or our home group members. Some of us in recovery refer to it as “connecting with life events.” Remember reading The Big Book for the first time? Picking up that 9 month chip? Or, the first time you danced sober? Those events clearly illustrate what “recovery” really is: the chance for a do-over…to live a life recovered. Staying connected to those important milestone events in your new life is a glorious way to strengthen and maintain long-term sobriety.
Personally, whenever I visit the area, I try to pick up a chip at the clubhouse where I lived when I first got sober. It is still just as wonderfully dirty and dingy as it always was, but I began my new life there, attending meetings at that clubhouse every day for the first several years of my sobriety.
And, every single time I drive by my treatment center, I feel a tremendous gratitude. For me, that place is a very important part of my recovery journey. As Albert Einstien said, “Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is.” My getting sober was certainly the miracle in my life. That single story hospital at the end of that driveway represents a part of that miracle. Now, as I am blessed to serve in this position at our center, it is my desire that everyone who comes through our doors leaves feeling that way. I want people to feel and know that they have that same connection.
I will always remember Edna, the nurse who worked in the evenings at my treatment center . My roommate and I were both nurses, and both happened to be in treatment on National Nurses Day. I remember that when we returned to our room that evening, after a long day of therapy, on our nightstands sat single roses, with cards signed, “Happy Nurses Day, Edna”. We shared many tears and hugs that night. We were so ashamed of where our addiction had brought us, but Edna cared, and wanted us to know she understood. I felt like she saved my life back then (though I know better, now) and I will always remember her. I will always treasure that connection.
So, now here is the payoff: I have a connection with Edna. I have a connection with the fellowship. I have a connection with my home group. I have a connection with my sponsor. I have a connection with my sobriety birthday (May 2nd). I have a connection with my treatment center. And as a result of those crucial connections, I now have a deep and ever-present connection with a power greater than myself who cares for me, protects me, and gives me purpose. This power looks just like my friends, my sponsor, my treatment center, May 2nd, my dog-eared Big Book and you.
I sincerely thank all of you for being here and for being important to me. Connections are the most precious gifts of my recovery, and give me the ability to live gratefully and appreciative of each new day, one day at a time. It is my prayer for each of you that you continue to make choices to connect with those people, places and things in your life that have changed you, helped you, and guided you.
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