Am I running away from, or running towards something?

Addicts and alcoholics are natural escape artists. Every drink, every hit we took, was to escape. We wanted to escape the pain, the emotions, the feelings, the husband, the wife, the kids, the job. We lived to use and use to live. Now we’re confronted with reality, what we’re left with once we come to recovery and stay clean and sober. We have to face life on life’s terms. What do we do? We can either face it head on by working the steps or turn and run. If we run, are we running away from something or towards something?

How do we know the difference?

Wherever we go, we take the disease with us. We are used to running from things like responsibility, the law, the ex, reality. We rarely run towards anything, we run from things. How do we know the difference? We have to ask ourselves some important questions:

Why Meetings are an Important Part of Recovery

“Meetings makers make it” we are told when we first arrive in the rooms of recovery. “Make what?”, you ask? Addicts and alcoholics that go to meetings are more likely to stay clean and sober. Another old saying, “People who don’t go to meetings, don’t get to hear about what happens to people who don’t go meetings,” is also true. So, we go to meetings.

At first, we’re told to do “90 meetings in 90 days,” or a meeting a day for 90 days. It takes the human brain about 90 days to learn a new habit. When we’re new to recovery, a new habit is exactly what we need. And many of us don’t realize that we get to go meetings. We go to a meeting every night, so that we can hear the message. The NA message is “An addict, any addict, can stop using drugs, lose the desire to use and find a new way to live.” We go to meetings to find a sponsor, make new friends and build a support group. It is around this time it is suggested we get a homegroup.