We Do Recover

[MajestyJo]

You are reading from the book Each Day a New Beginning

We're only as sick as the secrets we keep.
—Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Harboring parts of our inner selves, fearing what others would think if they knew, creates the barriers that keep us separate, feeling different, certain of our inadequacies.

Secrets are burdens, and they weigh heavily on us, so heavily. Carrying secrets makes impossible the attainment of serenity - that which we strive for daily. Abstinence alone is not enough. It must come first, but it's not enough by itself. It can't guarantee that we'll find the serenity we seek.

This program of recovery offers self-assurance, happiness, spiritual well-being, but there's work to be done. Many steps to be taken. And one of these is total self-disclosure. It's risky, it's humbling, and it's necessary.

When we tell others who we really are, it opens the door for them to share likewise. And when they do, we become bonded. We accept their imperfections and love them for them. And they love us for ours. Our struggles to be perfect, our self-denigration because we aren't, only exaggerates even more the secrets that keep us sick.

Our tarnished selves are lovable; secrets are great equalizers when shared. We need to feel our oneness, our sameness with other women.

Opportunities to share my secrets will present themselves today. I will be courageous.

For the most part, the reading says it all. It sure mirrored what I thought in early recovery.

My sponsor use to say, a burden shared is a burden lessoned. If you share it with one person, you only have to take half of it home. If you share it with ten people, you only have to take 1/10th of it home.

Many times I have shared a portion of my story only to have someone say, I am so glad you shared that I thought I was the only one. I needed that identification. For so long I compared and felt like I didn't fit in.

I was very lost, fragmented and bankrupt on all levels when I came into recovery. I found myself reflected in the women in my home group and in the men and women in other groups.

As I heard a man share one time, I had trouble getting in touch with my feelings until I heard a woman share. It is much easier for us. For men, it isn't considered the macho thing. By sharing, they too learn to identify. We all have a masculine and feminine side. I once got a medication card that told me that me feminine side was languishing. I was acting out in my survivor mode. Recovery for me is about balance.