In recovery

I remember being in early recovery and feeling so bad that I just knew it wasn't working. I'd tell my sponsor about it, and I can still hear him saying, "Michael, you're exactly where you should be, and that's exactly what you should be feeling right now." At first I thought he was just handing me a line, but after a while I believed him and learned to trust in the slow progress I was making in recovery.

Years later I'd hear other newcomers complain about how bad they felt and about how terrible of a day they were having. I can still hear the old timers ask them if they had a drink that day. "No," they'd respond.
"Then no matter how bad you think you're doing, when you lay your head on your pillow tonight you're a winner." It was comforting to hear that back then, and it still is today.

Now that I've been in recovery a while I understand the wisdom in this week's quote. It doesn't matter what you're going through in recovery or how you feel, the fact that you are in recovery, that you have a program, and that you're developing or improving your conscious contact with a power greater than yourself means that you've already won. You may feel like a loser temporarily, but most of the time and in the long run you'll live a life filled with the joys and miracles of recovery.

Over time you, too, will come to see that in recovery there are no losers, just slow winners.