8 August She Recovers Every Day

recovery is love · 2024-08-03T18:25:54.122Z

• She Recovers Every Day comes from https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/thought-for-the-day • From She Recovers Every Day: Daily Meditations for Women by Dawn Nickel, PhD ©2023 by Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher. 1 Aging I'm not sure that I ever looked forward to aging, but I've never been afraid of it or hated the idea of it. I'm just grateful to have made it this far. My mother never saw old age. I nearly died during my active addiction, then barely survived colon cancer. But it's more than gratitude. I'm excited to grow older. I'm ready to embrace my inner crone, even though I am not quite clear about when I'm allowed to call myself a crone. Importantly, aging has been the invitation that I needed to make friends with my body. I've always thought that I had a nice face and good hair, but today I feel the privilege of growing older deep in my softening belly, in wrinkles that seem to multiply daily, in my often-aching muscles and my creaky joints and bones. Accepting my aging body allows me to be more fully me. A wiser and gentler me, but also a more radical and outrageous me. Aging is just another season in my life, and I'm here for it. I think I might turn out to be a very cool old lady. 2 On Privilege I recognize that I access recovery services and support from a place of privilege. I self-identify as a white, cisgender, hetero, able-bodied, educated, feminist woman in recovery. I'm also Canadian, which means that in addition to being incredibly polite (you are probably familiar with the stereotype), I have access to health care and a supportive social safety net. My nationality is another form of privilege. Over the years, I have been the recipient of welfare, free addiction treatment (though that's not much of a thing in Canada anymore), and excellent universal medical care to get me through a range of health care crises, including addiction, depressive and anxiety disorders, and cancer. Recognizing privilege does not place any blame on me as a recipient. But recognizing it means that when I view others who are not as privileged as I am, but who are facing similar challenges as I have, I understand that they are likely also facing additional challenges that I haven't. If those of us who are able to do so offer more help—or even remove barriers to accessing help—we can make a big difference in the lives of other women seeking recovery. The first step is admitting my privilege—what comes next is up to me. 3 Serenity by the Sea I've always loved the ocean; any ocean will do. I was born near the Atlantic Ocean, I spend time each year swimming in the Mediterranean, and I now live on the edge of the Pacific Ocean in beautiful British Columbia. Before I leave this earth, I will dip my toes in the blue Aegean Sea. My Pacific Ocean has various personalities that come and go with the sun and the storms. A wild, angry sea is just as captivating to me as a calm sea on a sweltering hot day, and, regardless of the weather, the beaches here feed my ongoing obsession to find the perfect piece of sea glass. We take our family to the beach to play, and a walk along the water with a friend is a soul-lifting activity. One of my favorite things to do, though, is to take myself to the ocean when I need to think. I have been known to take my troubles along, say a prayer at the water's edge, and release what I no longer need. The ocean—all oceans—feed my soul. Do you spend time by the ocean? What feeds your soul? Deep oceans invite deep reflection. 4 Owning Our Part Part of my recovery work—in the past and into the present—is to understand where I have done harm in situations or relationships. When I first got into recovery, my first instinct was to deflect and blame everyone but myself for all the messes in my life. After a while, I swung the other way and took ownership of and responsibility for more than what was mine to hold. I have since learned how to put situations in perspective and find appropriate balance. I have learned that there is a fine line between figuring out what our part is in any given situation and letting people off the hook who don't deserve to be set free. Today, I find it easier to own my own part when something goes sideways in my life or if I hurt another being through words or action. Recovery is about taking responsibility for our part in things, and I'm here for it. I remain open to examining where my actions cause harm—to myself or to others 5 Getting through before Letting Go I used to preach that if something was troubling us, we just had to let it go. I believed that for myself, and I believed it for others too. If you shared with me that you had a deep resentment toward a friend or family member, I would tell you that you simply had to let it go. If I had a resentment or anything else that I invested a lot of emotional energy into, I'd tell myself that I just had to let it go. Unfortunately, the things that I thought I let go of never really went anywhere. They would resurface, and I'd have to let go again. And again. A few years ago, my daughter Taryn started to talk in her yoga classes about the idea that we must go through things before we let them go. A light came on for me listening to her words. As she reminded us, believing that we can just let go of things is a form of spiritual bypassing, as if we could avoid the bumper-to-bumper emotional traffic by going around the problem. I have since figured out that I need to sort out the energy behind the thing and resolve my feelings about it, and only then can I truly release it. Does this resonate for you? Letting go is the end of a thought process, not the beginning. 6 The Power in Being Powerless I completely understand and respect that many women have a problem with the concept of powerlessness that underscores Twelve Step recovery. Personally, I don't have a problem with the concept as long as I apply it in one very specific circumstance. In the program where I found recovery, the First Step reads, "We admitted we were powerless over our addiction—that our lives had become unmanageable." I felt a deep hell, yes the first time I heard and read that Step. As it was explained to me, the powerlessness came into play if or when I picked up the drug or behavior that caused me grief. And that was true for me: if I used substances, I had no control over what would happen next. I wasn't powerless over life in general, just over my addiction once I activated it. Because women have long known powerlessness, personally and historically, it makes sense that many are adamant about not assuming the idea of it regarding their own recovery. I think that's fair. I'm not here to suggest that you or anyone else needs to claim powerlessness to recover. I'm just here to offer an alternative understanding of the term so that we can all understand each other better. My powerlessness kicks in when I give in to my addiction. So I don't. 7 I Remember Her I remember the me I used to be. The little me, lonely and bookish but also cute and fixated on being funny enough to make her mommy laugh. How she loved to hear her mommy laugh. I remember the teenage me. Confused and unprepared for the adult world that she found herself in when she fled from trouble at home only to land in trauma afar. I remember the new mother me, with a newborn in her arms and eventually another. I remember her finally settling into that place of true knowing that there were two delightful reasons to keep going, not in the same direction but down a new path. I remember early healing me, filled with wonder that she had survived and excited for the opportunity to thrive. I remember the maturing me, grateful to be on the other side of dysfunction and despair, ready to give her all to making the most of her remaining years. Ready to share a message of hope and to settle once again into a deep knowing that all would unfold as it is meant to. I remember the present me. Still bookish, never lonely, fixated on hearing the twinkling laughter of her own children and grandchildren. I remember her. I hope I always do. 8 Detaching I've had to detach from a lot of things throughout my life. I've had to detach from people, situations, places. I've also had to detach from jobs, including one that I thought was my identity. I have had to detach from a lot of stories—stories that I told myself about myself, stories that turned out not to be true but had a huge impact on my life. Like the story that my parents didn't love me, perhaps the biggest story of all. I've had to detach from feelings in order to survive, to put aside my grief at times to care for my children. I've had to detach from other feelings that threatened to drown me at times. I've learned how to detach from other people's feelings and ideas, and I've detached from people. According to my friend Darlene Lancer, author of Conquering Shame and Codependency and Codependency for Dummies, sometimes it's about detaching from other people's "moods, actions, and words" so that we can "take our power back." I have taken my power back through detachment, and I'm keeping it. Detaching is sometimes just about minding our own business, but other times it's about surviving our feelings and our lives. 9 Acknowledging the Land As a person who found recovery in a Twelve Step program, I am familiar with the concept of making amends and reparation where needed, not only in my personal life but as a member of society. Part of that for me is recognizing my privilege as a settler woman living on unceded territory. In the She Recovers community, we encourage members to learn about the land on which they live and include a land acknowledgment when they introduce themselves in our gatherings. We view such acknowledgments as a profoundly important practice, not a token gesture. A meaningful land acknowledgment requires us to do more than just recite the names of the original inhabitants of the land (using correct pronunciation). It requires us to understand the history of the land and recognize how colonialism impacted the Indigenous peoples where we now live. It is important for us to honor the land and people who lived here long before we did. As we continue to work on our recovery, we learn how we can make amends and reparation to the land where we live and to its first peoples. This is what recovery looks like. I acknowledge with respect, gratitude, and humility the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional and unceded territories I live, work, and recover. 10 The Best Is Yet to Come I have long held as true that, for those of us in recovery from substance use or other addictions, one day the "must have that thing" switch flips, and we realize we no longer want the drink, the drug, the person, or the cigarette. There's plenty of work that goes into flipping that switch, but when it happens, it provides truly astounding relief. If it hasn't happened for you yet, keep doing the work. One day your switch will flip. And then one other day, perhaps many days later, you will realize that more than a few days have passed since you felt unworthy of the grace and the gifts that you are experiencing in your life. And you will think to yourself, "Wow. When did life get so good?" On that same day, you will start to wonder what else the universe might have in mind for you. You will get curious, and maybe even slightly nervous, about thinking that things might get even better. They will. You may not always find it easy to picture how good life in recovery can get, but keep trying. 11 Finding Softness It's hard sometimes to relax into softness. Harsh words and attitudes have been a constant in my life. I've been the recipient and the perpetrator of harshness. I know that I have a hard edge. Many don't see that edge, and it's not as hard as it used to be, but I know it's there. I have to practice being gentle. I have to soften into kindness. It sometimes takes a lot of effort and concentration. I admire women who appear soft. I hang out with them to try to learn from them. So often, we don't want to be too soft or be called a softy, because people might take advantage of us. But I have to remind myself that finding softness isn't about giving up power or strength. My work is finding the right amount of softness, the right amount of tenderness. As I grow and age, I think it's getting easier. Finding softness can mean speaking less, holding back, being quiet. It's about the practice of finding softness with ourselves and others. We can relax into softness by reminding ourselves that harshness is not our ally. 12 Many Pathways The only recovery support that I was introduced to before I left addiction treatment was Twelve Step support. At that time, nobody talked or wrote about other ways of doing recovery, although of course there were other ways. I'm fortunate that Twelve Step recovery worked for me, and I loved it right from the start. I found my true self through working the Steps, I found a higher power, and heck, I even found my husband at a Twelve Step convention. I still love my program of recovery, even though my recovery has gone in a lot of different directions recently. To be fully transparent, these days, I can go weeks or months without a meeting, but I love meetings when I get to attend. I don't have a sponsor or sponsees right now, but I'm still in close contact with many of the women I have supported or been supported by through the years. I haven't formally written a full set of Steps in a while, but I believe that I incorporate the Steps into my daily life. My recovery patchwork is tailored to my own needs, and yours can be too. In recovery, choosing our own pathway works best. 13 Outgrowing Drama The period when I was actively using drugs and destroying my life was characterized by one drama after another, mostly of my own making. The same was true during my severe workaholism phase. There were also aspects of my life that were comedic, thankfully, but drama reigned on most days. Not unexpectedly, being enfolded in drama so much of the time was exhausting for someone already tired out from addictive behavior. In recovery, we eventually lose the desire to seek out, create, or participate in drama. It's not an easy transition. For many of us, family dramas played out on the regular in our homes. When drama is the baseline reality of our lives, we naturally gravitate toward it because we aren't comfortable living without it. As our feelings and our circumstances regulate in recovery, our tolerance for high drama is lowered and lowered again. We stop creating it in our lives, and we learn to walk away from it when others create it for us. One of the hallmarks of strong recovery, in my view, is the absence of drama. We outgrow drama when we recover and heal. 14 Dear Seventy-Year-Old Me I'm making my way toward you, and I'm not going to lie: I'd really like the journey to slow the hell down. I think of what and who I will be by the time I'm seventy. I hope that I'm wiser. I hope that I'm healthy. I hope that I have found even more serenity than I have now. I hope I can look back and see all the people I've helped—and still be in touch with them and those who've helped me. I hope I have given much, but not so much that I've fallen into the trap of my old codependent ways. I hope that I am still spending time with women in recovery, women who are my age, and older and younger. We will need each other then just as much as we do now. I hope that my work life has slowed down, that I'm finding more time to travel and to play with my grandkids. I hope I've learned how to play something on the piano or paint with watercolors. I hope that I'm still devouring books—and writing them. But most of all, I hope that when I get to be me at seventy, I'm just as content to be myself as I am now, all these years earlier. As I age, who I am is more important than what I am. 15 Old Friends When I was about ten years old, a very nice girl I met at camp gave me a book with a poem in it that said something like "There are gold ships and silver ships, but the best ships are friendships." That has surely turned out to be true in my life. I am rich in the number of close, long-term friendships I have formed in my life, starting in my youth and continuing through my troubled young adult years into today. My closest "old friends" are loyal and supportive and never abandoned me, not even during those dark times when I was abandoning myself. Throughout the difficult years, we still managed to co-create a lot of hilarity, light, and joy. Our shared history means so much, and although years can sometimes pass between visits, our memories and the care we have for one another act as the glue that binds our friendships together. I hope you have at least one old friend who knew you when. If not, perhaps you can think of somebody to reach out to for a reintroduction. Old friends are among life's most precious gifts. 16 Creativity in Recovery We don't have to be artists, authors, or silversmiths to explore the joys and benefits of creativity in recovery. Creativity is about applying ideas and effort to create something new; it's about enhancing expression. Others in my life are incredibly creative quilters, cooks, jewelers, musicians, and artists in many other realms. I still struggle to refer to myself as creative outside of my writing, but over my years in recovery, I have expended considerable effort on things like beading, knitting, crocheting, adult coloring, and a touch of interior design. Above all else, my own creative outlets are integral pieces of my mindfulness practice, but they also connect me to creatives in my past and present. The click of knitting needles calls in memories of my mom and grandmother. Today, beading with a group of women grounds me and brings me joy, as most of the bracelets I create are for other women in recovery. Recovery is all about exploring what brings us joy. What are your creative outlets? Creativity allows us to take care of and express ourselves in new and illuminating ways. 17 Owning Your Recovery Patchwork It's essential, as individuals, that we truly believe that our chosen recovery pathway and patchwork is the very best one for us. If we don't, we'll find it hard to stay engaged with and invest in our recovery approach. We should be able to speak confidently about the modalities that we follow on our healing journey, which is easier to do when we have to put together our own recovery road map. We shouldn't allow anybody to dissuade us or make us think less of our choices, and we shouldn't try to convince anyone else that our way should be theirs. Our patchwork, as different as it might be, can never threaten anyone else's recovery. As Charlotte Kasl, author of Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps, wrote, "Neither I nor anyone else can take away someone's program by speaking of other ways. When someone thinks I can, it is because they have not internalized their own belief system and are giving their power to another person." I hope that you have internalized your belief in your own recovery. May your confidence in how you do recovery sustain and empower you. 18 Underscheduling One of the affirmations from the Workaholics Anonymous program is "My life is full and underscheduled." It means that though we are doing things in our life, we allow for some open time and flexibility. I think that this is a concept we could all benefit from embracing in our lives, regardless of whether we are scheduling work or other daily activities. When I read or hear the term underscheduled, it conjures up ideas about time left over, time to spare, spaciousness, time to play. Underscheduling doesn't happen naturally for many of us; it requires intentional focus and action. I'm not always very good at underscheduling, but I try. I purposefully try to leave open gaps in my daily schedule. The gaps provide opportunities for me to rest or refocus throughout the day, to stop and stretch, hydrate, or take a walk. Those openings also allow me to attend to things that come up unexpectedly with more ease and less anxiety. Creating broad margins in my daily plans means purposely saying no to things, which isn't easy for an overdoer like me. Like anything in recovery, it takes practice to underschedule. Learning how to create space in lives that are usually overscheduled takes time, but it's time well spent. 19 The Cult of Busy In Breaking Up with Busy: Real-Life Solutions for Overscheduled Women, Yvonne Tally writes, "Once a seemingly innocuous habit, busyness is now a culture, an addictive attraction promising the opportunity to fit in, get ahead, and be the best." Tally suggests that breaking up with our busyness requires us to ask ourselves a lot of questions, including one that really struck a chord for this recovering workaholic: "What is the price of your pace?" The price of being overbooked and overscheduled is always going to be too high for me. I now much prefer a snail's pace to the frenzied pace I used to keep when I thought my only value was in what I did, not in who I am. What is your relationship to busyness? Do you engage in it as a behavior? Is being busy a regular refrain in your vocabulary and maybe even a part of your identity? There's nothing to be ashamed of if the answers to the above questions are yes, but it is something to be aware of. When we know better, we do better. We release our attachment to busy and find fulfillment in a slow but steady pace. 20 Post-Traumatic Growth My friend Jennifer Storm is a woman in long-term recovery from addiction and a sexual assault survivor, advocate, and internationally recognized victims' rights expert. When she speaks and writes about the horrific things that happened to her when she was a child and young woman, she does so from a place of post-traumatic growth, which refers to the remarkable growth and change that people can experience following highly traumatic life events. Jennifer's story is very much about finding hope in the aftermath of trauma and addiction. It's also about reclaiming or rewriting our stories. As she wrote in her book Blackout Girl: Tracing My Scars from Addiction and Sexual Assault, "Neither your pain nor your offender gets to finish your story. You have the power to write your ending." Her reminder that we have agency in how we heal and what we do afterward is an inspiration for all of us who have been victims of violence and/or sexual assault. Few of us avoid trauma in our lives; may we all experience growth in the aftermath. 21 Owning Mistakes I'm not ashamed to admit that I screw up sometimes. But I must also admit, I'm not always super quick on the draw to take responsibility for my errors, omissions, mistakes, or misdeeds. I generally spend a bit of time thinking through how something is more your fault, or their fault, or anybody else's fault but mine. It's not fun to admit when I mess up. Unfortunately, owning my mistakes is the only pathway I know to releasing them. So I eventually exhaust the blame game and find my way into what is truer—that because I am human I made a mistake. I have to embrace the icky feelings that come along with screwing up, but then I claim the screwup and figure out how to get to the other side of it. Not everything can be fixed, but I can apologize for everything and try to avoid making the mistake again. And then I can move on. Life can be messy for us humans, and mistakes are a part of it. 22 Retreating All women deserve to retreat, to withdraw from everyday life to recalibrate, even if only for a few hours here or there. I have had the privilege of participating in and hosting women's recovery retreats for many years. Privilege is the key word here. Although formal retreats are not accessible to everyone, the concept of retreating has its origin in some very simple and affordable principles. Retreats can be about quiet time alone, about connection with like-hearted women, or a combination of both. I encourage you to find a few hours, a day, a weekend, or a week and plan a sacred pause. You can create a retreat sanctuary in your home or your yard if you can't get away. Rest. Reflect. If you need the time to figure out what is working in your life and what needs to change, you can do that too. But the emphasis should be more on self-care than self-development while retreating; retreats are not workshops. Retreating is my gift to myself. Because I'm worthy. 23 Unknowable There is something completely unknowable about the power of connection for women in recovery. I witness the healing that takes place when someone shares her hopes, her desires, or her innermost fears or traumas, and another woman nods in understanding. I see the connection; I feel it. The power of me too is indescribable, as we have all learned in recent years. I understand the psychology of spiritual support, that when we offer genuine compassion, encouragement, and reassurance, people feel safer to explore and experience their own healing. I know that we can support people verbally and with nonverbal cues. It all makes sense in my head. But I cannot and may never be able to explain how and why connection can bond us women in recovery together so deeply and so quickly. I can't think my way through to an understanding of the magic that often happens when circles of women gather in recovery. And I'm okay with not knowing exactly how and why it happens. I'm just grateful that it does. Some things about recovery will always be a mystery to me. I am still grateful even in my unknowing. 24 In Thanks and Forgiveness When I first got into recovery, I used to think about the her I used to be, and all I could do was judge her. I'm over that now. If I could go back and visit with her now, I'd mostly just want to thank her for some things and tell her I forgive her for others. I'd thank her for being a loyal and loving daughter to her perfectly imperfect parents. I'd tell her I forgive her for running away from home at sixteen because things were hard at home and because she knew she was veering down a path that she didn't want her family to witness. I'd thank her for doing her best to survive leaving home without having been taught any adult survival skills. I'd thank her for saying yes to having the baby girls who gave her a reason for living and a reason to recover. I'd thank her for keeping her heart open all these years to all that life and recovery has to offer, especially knowing that open hearts get hurt. I'd thank her for who she is today, and I'd forgive her in advance for all the ways she may still screw up. Because she is sure to mess up a few more times yet. Thank you. I forgive you. 25 Going First When asked why she shares so openly about her struggles, our friend and author Nadia Bolz-Weber says she hopes to help create a space for others to step into and feel safer admitting things about themselves. It's a form of leadership that she refers to as "Screw it, I'll go first." And she has certainly gone first in a lot of different areas. In addition to having written three New York Times bestselling memoirs, Nadia is a woman in long-term recovery from substance use, an ordained Lutheran pastor, and founder of House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver, Colorado, which is described on its website as "a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice-oriented, queer-inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient/future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination." It's hard not to be inspired by Nadia and her work, and I like to think we have a few things in common. I have also embraced the "Screw it, I'll go first" idea—by being the first person in my family in generations to embrace substance use recovery. And although I didn't establish a church, I did—along with my daughter Taryn—create a pretty amazing recovery community. I doubt I will ever be as cool as Nadia (did I mention her tattoos?), but I'm incredibly honored to know her. Somebody has to go first, but let's take turns. How have you gone first? 26 My Mother's Words One of the things that most sustains me in my grief recovery, and in my recovery overall, is that even after several decades of missing my deceased mother, I still speak to her often. Before she died, she and I grew quite close (thank you, recovery), and so it's not too hard to envision what she would say to me during those times when I really need her. I talk to her about all the good things that are going on, as well as the bad or scary stuff. I love to imagine what she would think of the world as it unfolds around us and how she would respond to the changes in our family, the lovely changes and the harder ones. When I'm stressed or worried about something, I can hear her saying to me, "Oh, Missy—you know what you need to do, just do it." Or, "Just you never mind, you'll be okay." On the days that I miss her so much that I ache, I listen extra hard with my heart, and I hear her say the things that didn't come easily to her when she was alive, although I know she felt them. "Sweet girl, I love you and I'm proud of you." Thank you, Mom. I love you too. Reparenting myself with words I give my mother is part of my recovery journey. 27 Better Late Than Never The concept of "Better late than never" perfectly suits recovery. Yet I hear so many women express worry that it's too late and too hard for them to recover. I agree on the latter; it can be hard to make big changes in our life, especially if we are older. But I also think that all time matters, and if we can make positive alterations in our life even for a day, week, month, or year, we should choose that. I've seen people totally transform their lives with something they do over the course of just one day in recovery. I've seen women find such satisfaction and joy in just a year of recovery that it makes up for years and years of pain or dysfunction in their lives and the lives of their families. If we subscribe to or embrace the concept that every single day of our life matters, then showing up for each one consciously and with our full potential will never be too late. We will be right on time. It's never too late to choose wellness, regardless of our age or stage of life. 28 Walking the Labyrinth My dear friend and recovery coach extraordinaire Kathy Robbins has a passion for designing labyrinths for women in recovery to walk. A labyrinth is an ancient, sacred space, a meandering set of passages that can be seen as a metaphor for our life's journey. When we physically walk the labyrinth, we enter an opening, follow a pathway that leads into a center, and then turn and retrace our steps until we are back at the beginning. We can't get trapped or lost in a labyrinth, unlike a maze. Kathy always invites us to walk the labyrinth quietly and slowly, turning inward, calming our mind, and remaining open to receive divine guidance. For those of us who like a little more direction, she tells us to focus on the four r's of walking the labyrinth: remembering who we are, releasing anything getting in the way of who we are, receiving guidance and blessings, and returning to the world with a renewed sense of self, joy, and purpose. It's an experience to be savored. Much like life. We don't come out of walking a labyrinth in quite the same state as we go in. 29 Walking the Talk I am someone who recovers out loud—proudly and consistently. I'm a talker, and I talk a lot about what recovery is broadly and how many ways there are to recover as well as how important it is to have agency in how we recover. I also talk plenty about what recovery and healing look like in my life, specifically. Like you, I have plenty of ideas about what I need to do to keep healing, and I try mightily to match my actions to those thoughts. Although I don't think of myself as a "say one thing, do another" type of person, I am a person whose reality stops short of my ideals. There was a time in my life when what I talked about doing rang empty, and my word meant little, so I had some work to do to gain back trust from others and regain a sense of personal integrity for myself. I've done that work, and I've become a person who walks the talk because my talk focuses on my imperfection. I will keep talking and walking. One step at a time. Speaking our truth and then walking in it takes practice. 30 Living on the Edge of Our Best Life Do you ever feel like you are on the edge of . . . something? Something good, maybe even exciting, but completely unknown? It's a great feeling, and it doesn't happen by accident. When we work on healing our past and intentionally live in the present while holding a bright vision for our future, things just start to feel like they are coming together. Living in a hopeful place invites anticipation; we anticipate that things are coming together and starting to integrate into something that looks like more of a whole. For some of us, this vortex of pride, gratitude, and excitement for what is to come can be described as a spiritual awakening—no religion required if that's not your jam. We just start to feel more fully "spirited" and alive. I've learned to lean into this incredible feeling and make the most of it. Not to spoil the plot, but these feelings do pass . . . yet they return again and again if you stay committed to your recovery. And each time we have the choice to stay on the edge of possibility or jump right into the abyss of what awaits us. Too scary? Well, the good news is we will be jumping in with you. Perched on the edge of possibility, we have the option to go deeper and do better. 31 Overdose Awareness Overdose Awareness Day is a global event commemorated every August 31. It was created in 2001 by Sally J. Finn from the Salvation Army in Melbourne, Australia. It's the world's largest campaign aimed to end overdose, reduce stigma, and acknowledge and mourn those who have died, as well as honor the grief their loved ones feel. Our community, the She Recovers community, participates in the worldwide campaign to help raise awareness of the tragedy of overdose death and to educate people on how to prevent overdose. One year, we asked members of our community what they would say to someone who is currently at risk for overdose through their substance use disorder. Their messages were heartfelt and helpful, and included things like People love you; you matter. Don't ever give up. Find your people and your support system, and keep them close. Keep Narcan close if you use opioids, and please know you are worth life and love! There is so much for you to do in your life, and you have a purpose. You are so important and so worthy of love and kindness. I hope those messages landed then, and land now, for all who need them. Stay here with us. It is possible to recover.

She Recovers Every Day comes from https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/thought-for-the-day
From She Recovers Every Day: Daily Meditations for Women by Dawn Nickel, PhD ©2023 by Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher.

1 Aging

I'm not sure that I ever looked forward to aging, but I've never been afraid of it or hated the idea of it. I'm just grateful to have made it this far. My mother never saw old age. I nearly died during my active addiction, then barely survived colon cancer. But it's more than gratitude. I'm excited to grow older. I'm ready to embrace my inner crone, even though I am not quite clear about when I'm allowed to call myself a crone.

Importantly, aging has been the invitation that I needed to make friends with my body. I've always thought that I had a nice face and good hair, but today I feel the privilege of growing older deep in my softening belly, in wrinkles that seem to multiply daily, in my often-aching muscles and my creaky joints and bones. Accepting my aging body allows me to be more fully me. A wiser and gentler me, but also a more radical and outrageous me. Aging is just another season in my life, and I'm here for it.

I think I might turn out to be a very cool old lady.

2 On Privilege

3 Serenity by the Sea

4 Owning Our Part

5 Getting through before Letting Go

6 The Power in Being Powerless

7 I Remember Her

8 Detaching

9 Acknowledging the Land

10 The Best Is Yet to Come

11 Finding Softness

12 Many Pathways

13 Outgrowing Drama

14 Dear Seventy-Year-Old Me

15 Old Friends

16 Creativity in Recovery

17 Owning Your Recovery Patchwork

18 Underscheduling

19 The Cult of Busy

20 Post-Traumatic Growth

21 Owning Mistakes

22 Retreating

23 Unknowable

24 In Thanks and Forgiveness

25 Going First

26 My Mother's Words

27 Better Late Than Never

28 Walking the Labyrinth

29 Walking the Talk

30 Living on the Edge of Our Best Life

31 Overdose Awareness