Birthday Miracles on Recovery Road
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It’s my birthday today.
And I have a migraine.
Upon first hearing this you might imagine that I am angry and sad and frustrated. Three or four weeks ago, I probably would have been.
Today I am not. And that my friends is a miracle.
Four weeks ago, I allowed myself to get into a spiral of sadness, self-pity and judgment about not qualifying for funding for a loan that I wanted to take out to purchase my dream camper van. I cannot even put into words how angry and sad I was… and also how ashamed. To be 56 years old and not be able to qualify for a basic auto loan is pretty humiliating.
Thankfully, I have learned enough from almost 14 years of 12 step work to know that my strong reaction to this disappointment was a big red flag that I was not, in any way shape or form, working my program of recovery.
When a person in recovery is in alignment with their program, there is a level of understanding and acceptance that no matter what happens in one’s life, there is something to be learned from it and an opportunity for spiritual and emotional growth. Since I wasn’t seeing this great disappointment as an opportunity for growth, I knew that there was something out of alignment in my spirit.
This caused me to make some pretty drastic course corrections in the way I was spending my time.
For one thing, I became aware that I really needed to do some more recovery work to get to the root of these deeper issues. This led me to the library and to a few very important books about recovery from codependency. It also led me to attending and joining a regular mid -day group that meets in Wickford in one of my favorite places and not coincidentally in the First Baptist church there (ha!).
I began to journal more intensely, and I also began to look at what I needed to do to make changes in my life to feel more proactive about my growth and development as a human being. This led me to book sailing classes at Sail Newport, as one of the chief reasons that I have been feeling fear and discouragement, is the fact that I now live on a boat and don’t know how to sail her.
In recovery, we are taught that our disease stems from mainly what is called “stinking…
