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and like the Phoenix, I rise whole. Recovery is all of the things that well people can take for granted; sleeping nights, being able to get up and get dressed in the morning, being able to feed yourself, and choose your own food. It is the freedom to go from one place to another, and to support yourself as well as you are able, to have a place that you can really call home. Sometimes it is even the sharp terror of relapse, when you wonder: "What will happen to me if I fall?" Recovery is then knowing that you are vulnerable, and that you are in the process of learning how to recognize trouble before it comes to roost on your shoulder. It is finding out that you will survive the next crisis, how to control the damage and maybe come out on the other side better than you ever were. You will lose your way; count on it. Once I was involved in a search-and-rescue for a woman who had been lost in the woods for two days in freezing weather. She had wandered off the trail at night and instead of staying put she kept walking, not knowing she was heading farther into wilderness. When you become lost, stay where you are until the sun comes up and you can find your way: moss grows on the north side of trees, streams almost always run toward roads. When the darkness has passed, you can find your way out safely. As Donna Shalala once said, "You’ve been through worse than this and there are more mountains to climb." |