Finding fulfillment
“We weren’t oriented toward fulfillment; we focused on the emptiness and
worthlessness of it all”
Basic Text p. 86
There were probably hundreds of times in our active addiction when we wished we
could become someone else. We may have wished we could trade places with
someone who owned a nice car or had a larger home, a better job, a more attractive
mate-anything but what we had. So severe was our despair that we could hardly
imagine anyone being in worse shape than ourselves.
In recovery, we may find we are experiencing a different sort of envy. We may
continue to compare our insides with others’ outsides and feel as though we still
don’t have enough of anything. We may think everyone, from the newest member to
the oldest old-timer, sounds better at meetings than we do. We may think that
everyone else must be working a better program because they have a better car, a
larger home, more money, and so on.
The recovery process experienced through our Twelve Steps will take us from an
attitude of envy and low self-esteem to a place of spiritual fulfillment and deep
appreciation for what we do have. We find that we would never willingly trade places
with another, for what we have discovered within ourselves is priceless.
Just for today: There is much to be grateful for in my life. I will cherish the spiritual
fulfillment I have found in recovery.