Out of the Woods--The book is in stores and on Youtube

I am so pleased to let you know that what began on this blog is now a book. "Out of the Woods" has been published by Central Recovery Press.

You can purchase the book at your local bookstores or an Amazon. I placed a link below to make that easy. And also a link to me on YouTube talking about why--oh why--I wrote this book.

I began talking about how we come out of he woods when I was maybe ten years into my recovery and then I started writing about the issues of changing recovery, transferring addictions, relationships in recovery and finally longterm recovery over the next 20 years.

I made myself laugh when someone recently asked me how I wrote a book while also having a big job and a busy recovery life and rich friend life and wonderful married life too (and a little cancer thrown in for interest) and I said, meaning this is how I write, "I did it one day at a time."

Yeah, I said that. To coin a phrase:) But it's true. I wrote the book the way I do recovery: baby steps, trials and tests, building new habits and one day at a time.

I invite you to buy the book. But keep joining me here. The discussion  just keeps going and there is so much more for us to talk about as we come out of the woods.

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHbwyvPV0Q0&feature=youtu.be

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Woods-Womans-Long-Term-Recovery/dp/1937612473

Wendell Berry on Spiritual Progress

A friend shared a poem with me this week that went straight to my heart. It is by Wendell Berry and it describes so well the sensation we have in a long recovery, of coming out of the woods.

Maybe you, like me, have those times when you feel you have barely changed, something hard is happening and you struggle or ache, then you look back to see where you have come from and you realize how far you’ve come and that you really are different.

When we look back we can see where we have been and we can see the graces that were there then. What gives us the strength to go forward is the realization of how far we have come and knowing there was grace. Looking back gives us the faith to go forward.

Here is the poem by Wendell Berry:

We travelers, walking to the sun,

can’t see
Ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,

Along which blessings now appear, risen

As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,

By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward

That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

                                            

                                                      --Wendell Berry, Given: New Poems

Out of the Woods

When I was newly sober the old-timers in my Baltimore home group would say I should not be impatient with my recovery because, “It takes three to 5 years to get out of the woods.” Of course, like many, I thought five years was forever.

Later, near the five-year mark, I realized that it took just that long to get into the woods and to make a real dent in changing my thinking and behavior. I remember when I celebrated my five year anniversary I joked that I had by that time come to in the woods and I was just beginning to identify the plants and creatures that made up the true nature of my character defects, other subtle addictions, and just plan bad habits.

At the five to seven year phase I began to really understand that recovery is a life long process, that there would be no prizes other than a decent life and wonderful community and so I could stop trying to get an “A” in AA.

Of course that meant more changes to my program, like trying a different kind of sponsorship, taking advantage of outside help, and looking at my work and health and family as part of my deeper recovery issues.

By year ten I began to actually have the life that I had dreamed of in the early years. But I also saw that there were fewer and fewer people in the rooms who shared my number of years. At first I felt bad, and I said, as many do, “Where are the old timers?” “Where are the people with ten or more years?” In Baltimore where I got sober it was common to run into people with 15 years or more than 20 years but there was definitely a gap in the ten to 15 year range. What was going on?

When we ask: “Where are the people with ten or more years?” The answer is: They are living sober lives, with new careers, working in their community, often in new relationships and sometimes with new families. We have added the PTA and the Rotary and new children to lives that were once filled with two meetings a day, making coffee and sponsorship. At ten years sober alcoholics start to have what many of us wanted and failed at miserably when we were drinking. It is this very new life, the one I acknowledge with tears of gratitude, which takes me away from AA the way I used to be part of it. Managing the gifts of recovery is part of coming out of the woods.

Yes, it is a paradox, and a subject worthy of sober reflection. We need people with more than ten years to show up at meetings so newcomers can have their power of example, and because no one it automatically “fixed” AA remains a lifetime process. But it is also a time worthy of celebration as sober people are well enough and committed enough to take what they have learned in the rooms and practice that in the world outside AA.

The truth is that there really is a time of coming “out of the woods”, and often this happens as we reach double-digit sobriety. It’s an important time, and one that deserves care and attention. Just like adolescents who have to leave the nest and test their wings we still need a place to recover and to celebrate being in the world with relationships and careers and community service. But we also need to find ways to maintain our commitment and membership in AA and to still make our contribution there, though sometimes in new ways.