Recovery as spiritual journey:

First you desperately seek an object to bring you happiness, then, after many face plants, you realize no object can do that, so you stop running and finally face what is, where healing and recovery begin, but then, confronted by your naked wounds without your familiar escape hatch, that too becomes a chase, a far... See more

Fear is the answer. I think, at the bottom, I was afraid to get sober. I was afraid that I couldn’t do it, I was afraid that I couldn’t cope with life’s challenges, afraid that I wouldn’t have a safe refuge to hide from the world, that I wouldn’t be able to stay sober and afraid that I really just couldn’t manage to live without drinking.

What are the biggest benefits or gifts of sobriety?

The greatest benefit, to me, is the ability to handle adversity and joy with the same heart. To know that despair and bliss are feelings and not states of being, and that my feelings won’t make me or break me. The greatest gifts have been my spiritual life and having true relationships