This month's guest speaker:  Anonymous.

The author retains the rights to this material

Rhapsody of Recovery – An Anonymous Story

            Twenty years ago I didn’t view things the way I do today.  I viewed life, myself, and everyone else through a very narrow shaded pair of glasses.  I was at the end of my road, disillusioned, confused and in terrible unending pain.  Somehow, I had lost my way.  I had been following a path as a young man and got sidetracked in self destruction that I called my right of passage, my reward for working hard, my gift to myself for some self-centered misguided belief that temporarily let me run away and hide.

            From the beginning, in my late teens, I didn’t understand what I was getting into.  I never knew that I had a compulsive addictive personality.  So when drugs were introduced to me, I jumped in with both feet. Getting high was exactly what I was looking for.  It made me feel things that I couldn’t feel on my own.

            As I got older, I continued to expand my imported good feelings.  Through my education, marriage, the starting of my business, and the birth of my two wonderful children, I continued my extracurricular activities.  I never noticed that I had stopped evolving as a human being along the way.  Eventually my alcohol and drug addiction completely took me over.  I became less than human and lived in that state for over 10 years.  I became an angry evil man.

            Through the grace of God, I came into the program and was introduced to recovery.  That was July 1, 1985.  The program has changed my life.  I have been touched by the gift of a sponsorship, the 12 steps, meetings, and a relationship with the God of my understanding.  I became a student of the steps and over the years I changed.  The miracle of change, self-honesty, and self-evolution is available to us all.

            In the program I have found my way.  Recovery has brought me self-acceptance and the joy of living.  I have family and friends that love and respect me.  My glasses and my view of the world have expanded.  I understand and see the light.  Life has been good to me.  I am very comfortable with me.  I am blessed.  I live in the joy of my life and am experiencing the rhapsody of recovery.  Today, I’m a most grateful recovering addict, thank you for listening.

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