Recovery Is a Process

We mistakenly treated recovery like it was an event, rather than a process. ….We forgot that recovery is like walking up an escalator that is going down. When we quit climbing, we regressed. ~ Berger, Allen. 12 Smart Things to Do When the Booze and Drugs Are Gone: Choosing Emotional Sobriety through Self-Awareness and Right Action (Berger 12) (p. 24). Hazelden Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I grew into the Twelve Steps of Recovery.
I received as a gift the book Overeaters Anonymous,
Second Edition and read it eagerly.
The gift from a woman with years in Alcoholics Anonymous
thought it was the program explained,
like the AA Big Book which Overeaters Anonymous uses
in the same way. Instead, the gift book
was like the stories after the first 143 pages
of the Big Book. But it was exactly what I needed.
I decided to join OA… after Thanksgiving
and Christmas…why start a “diet”
before the proper time…New Years!!?
But seven days before Christmas Eve
my life changed forever! I got in the car
with sweet treats to eat as I drove alone to church
and told God aloud, “This is stupid!”
Then I ate it…. A life-changing moment,
but not that transformative!
It was an event, but this December 17th
will be the 14th year of the process
of becoming a compulsive Overeater
in Recovery. I’ve tried the recovery
like walking up an escalator going down.
I weigh less than I did in 1960
as an eighth grader.
I love the process of Recovery!