“‘We…’ admitted that we were powerless…”  -Word 1, Step 1.

Maybe you’ve heard that your recovery should be “selfish.” It’s true. If your efforts aren’t foremost for yourself you’ll be very discouraged when those efforts aren’t met with the appreciation you hoped for. Why not give yourself a break, lavish a little compassion on yourself, and move into a life of recovery because it’s simply the best life ever? When recovery is foremost for you, you find that recovering the love, trust, and re-acceptance of others follows in time.

But while we don’t do this for others, we must do this with others. We is the first word in the Twelve Steps. And many would contend that it’s the most important word. Our addiction made us lonely. We were stuck in substance and shame. So we hid. We were go-it-alone, leave-me-alone, and dying alone. But that’s over now. Recovery is amazing because it’s a life of acceptance, appreciation, friendship, and love. Recovery community is where we learn to live again as the social beings we were always designed to be. We is the first word.

The “we” of recovery community helps us stay the course. There is something powerful about knowing that we aren’t alone and that our addiction is actually much more common that we thought. Psst — don’t tell anyone — but addicts and alcoholics are everywhere. So we share our commonalities; our common pasts and our common passions. The shame is gone now. Recovery makes us comfortable in our skin again.

Not only does the “we” of recovery community help us but it’s how we get to help others. All our “got-to’s” are now get-to’s. I don’t got to stay sober; I get to. I don’t have to share life with others. I get to. I get to help others experience the same love and hope that I get to experience and we get to do this together. We is the first word.

We are way smarter together than any one of is in isolation. We are way stronger together than any one of us is alone. We are way safer together than any one of us is out there by ourselves. “Getting with the program” means getting with the people of the program. We is the first word.

recovery, the 12 steps