Recovery has never been a straight line for me. It has unfolded like sedimentary earth—each layer telling its own story, each stratum revealing a different kind of pain and a different kind of grace.
It began in the way many recoveries begin: with the urgent need to stop. Alcohol had become my false fire, a form of “chemical empowerment” that granted me the illusion of strength while hollowing me from the inside out. AA offered a path not only to sobriety, but to sanity. Still, I could not yet see the whole picture. I had to peel back the intoxication to even begin identifying what hurt.
I came to see that the drinking wasn’t the root. It was the fruit—bitter and bruised—from a deeper, older vine. Beneath the addiction was a family system built on fear, control, and silence. The co-dependency I inherited had trained me to read the emotional temperature of a room better than my own internal compass. So I found myself in Al-Anon, tracing the emotional contour lines that shaped my earliest attachments. There I learned to name the patterns—not to curse them, but to understand them.
But even as I worked the Steps and made amends, there was one person left behind in the wreckage. Me.
That is when ACA called to me—not as a replacement, but as a deeper well. A program not just for behavior, but for the original wound. For the child within me who had long ago assumed that love must be earned, safety must be managed, and identity must be negotiated in the shadows.
I was surprised to discover that ACA’s inventory was more intricate—eleven sections. Not because my sins were greater, but because the terrain was more nuanced. This was the geography of the heart’s defenses, built not to harm others, but to protect a terrified child trying to survive. Each section was less about condemnation and more about compassion—about understanding the scaffolding I built when no adult came to save me.
Now I find myself at a kind of threshold. There is no parade here. No grand proclamation. Just a quiet question rising from within: “What does it mean to make amends to myself?”
I don’t know exactly where “there” is. But I know what it feels like to walk the path toward it. It feels like turning toward myself rather than away. Like claiming the sacredness of my own becoming. Like treating the process not as a project to finish, but a relationship to honor.
This is not a finish line. It’s a ever-expanding spiral. And I am still rising.
I say this to say to you, dear reader, don’t give up. You too may have layers to travers. Keep moving. From time to time, stop and breath, and appreciate the journey.
“Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.
May God bless you and keep you—until then.” ~ Alcoholics Anonymous (page 164)
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Daily Reprieve 
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