When I first heard the term recovered, I bristled, saying to myself we are never recovered, always recovering. Well, I found that the Big Book of Alcoholics says the word recovered several times, beginning with the forward to the first edition: “We of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have RECOVERED from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have RECOVERED is the main purpose of this book.”
I have learned that as long as I am eating soberly and living the 12 Steps to the best of my ability, I am capable of surrendering and accessing that power greater than myself. I can be recovered which means to me being restored to sanity with the food and with my life just for one day at a time. In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says: “Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced.” I loved to escape into my own little world and found that world in food, alcohol, and other activities that helped me not to feel or deal with the world as it was. I was always thinking “into tomorrow…”; “I’m going to”; “I wish”; “If only you were different”; and/or “If I was only thinner, younger, prettier, smarter, then I wouldn’t be so unhappy.” I gave everyone else power except my Higher Power. I am recovered today. My disease is in remission, as is my diabetes, as long as I am working and living the Steps each day, because I only have one day at a time. If I’m in the future or the past, today is wasted. I have my daily rituals to keep me in one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time. Living soberly in mind, body, and spirit allows me to feel the love around me and appreciate what I have, not what I don’t have.
— Deanna B.