The Library

I also want to bring another great post from "London" (who is already in SA groups for 5 years) where he describes how much effort we need to put into recovery. "London" writes:

Addiction is an illness, and the medicine required for recovery is working the tools of recovery, as written in the GYE Handbooks. Personally for me, my illness had progressed to such a level that I needed to take a strong dose of medicine to get recovery. I have heard mentioned at meetings, "how much does a person need to put into their program to get well?" And I was told to gauge it by my acting out. In other words, I should put as much time and effort into my recovery as I did into my acting out. And for me, I put hours and hours of time and effort into my addiction, so consequently, the first 12 tools of the GYE Handbook were not enough to get me well on their own, and I have to attend SA meetings and do therapy (see tools #13-#15 of the GYE Handbook). Even therapy on its own was not enough.

At the beginning, it can be hard to find the level that you require, but if a person is honest with themselves and has the desire to get recovery, they will start working the tools and increasing the dose progressively - as the handbook suggests, until they achieve full recovery.

As it so famously says in the AA Big Book:

"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.

There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest".

To end, I just want to write that since I have started posting on the forum, my recovery has undergone a major overhaul, as I now practice the tools that I write about. I am so grateful that there is a forum where I can connect to recovery and that helps me in my Avodas Hashem as well.

London.

After "ShomerAyin" read the Chizuk e-mail above, he sent me an e-mail as follows:

Thank you for the beautiful post. I felt so down today, like there's no hope for me. You've given me reason to continue. I felt as if all my options were closed, and you've just opened another door for me to walk through.

Thank you for being willing to walk me through this journey. Bli neder, beezrat haShem I'll start with this tomorrow.