Recovery Should be Celebrated Every Day!

Recovery is Every Day!

Did you know that September is officially "Recovery Month"?  This awareness event is sponsored by SAMHSA  National Recovery Month 2022 | SAMHSA and Faces and Voices of Recovery  Home - Recovery Month (facesandvoicesofrecovery.org).

Let me tell you a metaphor about my recovery and holidays.  When I attended college, my friend Jeff and I would sit on a bench in the middle of campus.  When people walked by, we would often greet those we knew with a "happy earth day!".  We would do this every day, even though Earth Day was only one day a year.  Folks would respond, 'Today isn't Earth Day', to which we would inevitably respond 'Every day is Earth Day!'  Jeff and I both believed that every day was an Earth Day, even if it was only celebrated officially one day a year.

My recovery is just like Earth Day.  Every day is a day in recovery.  Every day in recovery has a bit of happiness and satisfaction that I made good choices for one more day.  Now I know that September being labeled as Recovery Month is really about raising awareness that recovery is possible for a broad audience of people not in recovery.  It is a worthy mission, and I applaud it.  I appreciate the effort to destigmatize recovery from substance-use and addiction.

In my LifeRing meetings, it is almost focused on a circle of people experiencing recovery and discovering their own pathway to recovery. While we discuss the world around us and people outside the circle, the support is outwards.  I don't do enough to make people outside of LifeRing aware of what we do or how we do it.  Hopefully Recovery Month can help us pay a little bit of attention to raising that awareness for the people outside our circle.

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LifeRing is hosting an online, open house Recovery Celebration on September 24th from 2:00pm to 9:00pm Pacific Time. For more information, please see the LifeRing News Blog, the LifeRing Events webpage and the Faces & Voices Recovery Month Calendar

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