Hope is Alive

One Day At A Time #essentialsofrecovery
BABY STEPS

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

–Helen Keller

(born Helen Adams Keller (1880 – 1968) American author, activist and lecturer and the first deafblind person to graduate from college).

From as far back as I can remember, I believed that, in order to be worthy or loved, I had to achieve great things. It didn’t matter what it was but I set out to be the best at whatever I did, hoping that would make me feel better. Whether it was academic or one of the many diets or diet clubs I tried, it was the same story, and failure was totally unacceptable. Delayed gratification was definitely not part of my vocabulary, and so things had to be done or achieved in record time. If I wanted something done, it had to be done today, if not yesterday. Everything I did was done compulsively. I was, as one person in a meeting described, a “human doing,” not a “human being”.

Of course the things I could never really achieve were permanent weight loss and the serenity that comes with recovery. These seemed to elude me when I first came into the program, mainly because I expected to do it perfectly and in a very short time. After all, I had lost weight before, and quickly too. I had to realize that recovery is not a race, that this is a journey, not a destination. I don’t have to do it all in one day, nor do I have to be the best at it. All I need to do is to take baby steps, one day at a time, and I will recover as God wills me to do. I just need to put one foot in front of the other and do what is before me. Recovery is cumulative and I build on it, day by day.

One Day at a Time . . .

I do the footwork and put my trust in my Higher Power, believing that, as I do what I need to do for today, God’s healing power will come to me in the form of recovery.

Sharon S.