Celebrating Addiction Recovery

What people usually hear about addiction is depressing. The addiction horror stories circulate faster and wider than the recovery stories. I’ve often been asked how I work in the field of addiction. I’m asked if it’s depressing, seeing all the ruined lives and the failure. My response has been that I also see recovery. I learned long ago that addiction is a treatable and recovery is possible. I know clients now who I first met in 1980s that are still in recovery — they’ve been drug-free for decades.

Recovery is happening all over the world. I’ve made arrangements to go the International AA Convention in Atlanta in July. The International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous is held every 5 years. I went to the one held in Seattle in 1990. The Super Dome was filled with recovering alcoholics from all over the world. If I remember correctly, the flags of 65 nations were flying at the convention, each nation represented by members of AA at the convention. Not only were the seats filled, the playing field was full of recovering alcoholics.

Celebrating addiction recovery happens everywhere among recovering addicts — it’s just not advertised well. Stories of recovery aren’t circulated like the terrible acts that happen when someone is under the influence of a mood altering drug. Thankfully, the internet has given a voice to recovery — there are websites on which recovering addicts tell their stories, and it gives hope to millions of alcoholics or other drug addicts who are just beginning the road to recovery. Here is one such site. This is an excerpt from the recovery story:

I am grateful that I have embraced the fruits of what it means to be accountable.  I know what trust is now.  There is nothing greater in my mind than the feeling of being believed in.  This made a huge difference.  Structure and consequence offered me the chance to find out what being responsible really meant.  People told me the truth.  These were really good people who I could recognize as being good because I was drug free.  I found the friendships I made in treatment to be very special and so different from other relationships from my past.   I accepted these new friends because they accepted me.