Boom!

It’s Holiday month here in North America with the two giants in the North celebrating independence. Canada Day rolled by on Friday (Canada became in independent nation in 1867) and of course Independence Day here in the good ol’ USA! The only noises in our quiet offices are the tapping of my keys and John Mellencamp (R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.) on repeat on iTunes. The 4th of July is a great metaphor for recovery though.

Sometimes recovery is lonely. Sometimes it feels like you are the only one in the world who is having a struggle. It may seem like everyone who was here yesterday is gone today and now it’s just you. I have a friend in recovery who says that sometimes the emotion seems to tell one story, but you always need to collect enough evidence to find out the truth. Sometimes I need to look at the possibility that my emotions and thoughts just might be wrong!

Why am I at the church when the rest of the world is taking the day off? Well, first of all, I am here so that I can talk to you. It’s part of my routine and I try to keep my routines to maintain my sobriety. Second of all, a short walk down the hallway proves my earlier point about not letting emotion cloud out the truth:

Exhibit A: there are people just outside selling fireworks.

Exhibit B: most of the rest of the world doesn’t celebrate today, for them it’s just another Monday

Exhibit C: another staff member is in another building taking care of some things there.

And this brings me to the second point: toady is a day of celebration and my recovery needs to be a celebration. I know there are a lot of various recovery groups out there, but my favorite is Celebrate Recovery and here we like to celebrate the good that is happening. I don’t chastise the person who called last night to say they fell off the wagon (again); I celebrated with them because they also chose to get back on the wagon (again!). It’s a celebration folks. Go out and have a good (sober) day and come back to reality tomorrow.

Here’s a final Independence Day tip for you: before lighting fireworks, put brightly colored tape on your fingers. This will make them much easier to find when you blow them off!

-Rise Up!!!