A LITTLE HOPE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Just For Today

The holidays can be treacherous times for those in recovery.

Loneliness and emptiness are common feelings for a lot of people
during the Christmas season, but when your life hangs in the balance
if you choose to get high, those feelings can be deadly.

For a lot of us, it's easy to look back at everything we've lost and
not see everything we have. If we're alone, it seems that all we see
are couples and families, smiling and laughing and enjoying
themselves. If we're financially strapped, all we notice are the
people pushing shopping carts full of presents out to their nice cars.
If we're just getting into recovery, every bar catches our eye, the
men and women going inside seeming so jovial and good-spirited.

The short days and long nights, the Christmas carols, the emphasis on
the tangible and the physical in our consumer-driven society ... these
things are tough for anyone to deal with. And if you're an addict, the
temptation to use drugs to drive away those negative feelings is
mighty tempting.

I've been slow coming into the Christmas spirit this year. My life has
been tumultuous lately, with everything that seemed permanent somehow
dissolving into thoughts of what-used-to-be and what-might-have-been.
Work and recovery and finances and life in general have made the
Christmas spirit hard to come by this year.

I don't like that feeling. The holidays are a time to be savored, to
tap into that reserve of good will and holiday cheer that seems to
permeate society during December. So far, I haven't found the time to
do that.

Do I still think about getting high because of all of this? I'd be
lying if I said I didn't. Getting high was an escape from reality and
all of the feelings it encompasses.

Because that's really all we want -- to not feel those negative
emotions. To not feel like our lives are meaningless. In all reality,
they're not -- personally, I have more friends, true friends, in my
entire life thanks to recovery. I have a place to go for Christmas,
because my family trusts me again. Even if I didn't, I have a new
family of recovering addicts who would gladly open their homes to me.

Because of recovery, I have money to spend on loved ones. I know I'll
go to bed at night tired from a productive day and wake up the next
morning without a hangover or the obsession to roll over and
immediately put something into my body. More importantly, I've
regained the ability to laugh and to smile, to look myself in the
mirror and not flinch. I've found my self-esteem, something I never
had before, and I can at last be at peace in my own skin.

And there's something else. I have hope today.

In the words of Tim Robbins' character from "The Shawshank
Redemption," "Hope is a good thing, maybe the only thing."

The 12-step program to which I belong gives me that. Every time I go
to a meeting, I feel it building, just walking up the sidewalk and
hearing the laughter of familiar voices. It envelopes me in the hugs
of friends and strangers alike, all of our differences erased by one
overwhelming similarity: our addiction, and our desire to get better.

I have hope today.

I have hope that others who suffer as I did, as my friends did, find
their own paths to recovery.

I have hope that the new year will bring with it emotional and
spiritual riches beyond anything I can imagine.

I hope that I'll stay clean and pick up two years in March, surrounded
by family both old and new.

I hope that I continue to walk the path of recovery, to leave my
addictive ways and old behaviors behind.

I hope to get married, to have children, to be a good father. To
continue to be a good son and a good brother.

To continue working on becoming a better man.

I hope.

And sometimes, that's all an addict really needs, just to make it
through another day.

Merry Christmas.