# Recovery

Because I can't change a tire. I can't do my taxes. I can't light a grill. I usually can't hang a picture without creating holes the size of silver dollars in the drywall. (But the few times I have done it successfully, man, oh, man, did I feel like I could save us all.) I can't camp. Or ski. Or climb up ladders higher than six feet. I speak no... See more

I got the help I needed. Medication helped turn down the volume on my feelings enough that I could hear my thoughts over them, and made them small enough to get my arms around. I ask myself questions like, “Is this true, and how do I know it?” and say things like, “The problem will be there tomorrow.”

I tell them that the Big Book isn’t about getting religion or worshipping anything—it’s simply about recognizing where you really stand in the Universe and answering some very personal questions about how you got here, where you’d like to go and the things that would need to change, to make that possible.

“Dear Frau V.,

Your questions are unanswerable because you want to know how one ought to live. One lives as one can. There is no single, definite way for the individual which is prescribed for him or would be the proper one. If that’s what you want you had best join the Catholic Church, where they tell you what’s what. Moreover this way fits in with... See more

It feels like there are so many contradictory rules: we have to ask questions but also talk about ourselves. We have to be cool but not detached. We have to be smart and informed but not a pretentious know-it-all.

I believe I’ve always been a sensitive, generous, and caring person—but too wound up in my own troubles to express that or to really be there for others

Christianity is not about changing other people—it isn’t! It’s nice if people do change, but that’s God’s work. It’s about changing ourselves, and that never stops.