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Endigar 992

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 13:

I put my Sponsor on a pedestal. I looked to her for all the answers and saw her as my mother, friend, mentor – a goddess. She appeared to be more than I could ever be; she was perfect.

One day she made a mistake and fell from the pedestal on which I had placed her. How could she be so human? How dare she display such imperfection? At first I felt frightened and abandoned. But my Sponsor’s slide from grace led me to see that I was responsible for my own Al-Anon program.

I found that the “answers” she had given me were simply her own experience, strength, and hope, along with her understanding of the Twelve Steps of recovery. I learned that the tools of the program are available to me too. And I learned that , although she was my Sponsor, we were both changing, stumbling, growing members of Al-Anon. Most importantly, I learned that setting a human being up to be perfect creates inevitable failure.

Today’s Reminder

Have I put someone on a pedestal? Am I encouraging anyone to have an exaggerated view of me? Al-Anon helps me see that while we offer mutual support, we must learn to rely on ourselves. Today I will remember that my answers lie within me.

Sponsorship is a friendship made up of two members learning from one another, . . . two people learning a new way to live – one day at a time.

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There was a time when I needed Her to be perfect.

I carved Her image from the ache of my unmet needs—my longing for a parent who would never abandon, a friend who would never misunderstand, a mentor who always knew what to say. She was everything I had ever lacked. I placed Her on a pedestal I had constructed from desperation and awe. She shone there, impossibly radiant. A goddess not of myth, but of survival.

And then She slipped.

She didn’t answer a prayer. She didn’t show up in the way I expected. She made a mistake—at least, that’s how I saw it. The pedestal cracked. And with it, something in me did too. I felt a familiar terror—abandonment’s sharp wind blowing through my soul. How could She fail me? How could the only perfect thing I had ever trusted reveal Her own humanness—or worse, my projections?

But in the echo of that fall, I heard a deeper invitation: to grow up.

My recovery began anew that day. Not in the grand illusion of divinity projected onto another, but in the ordinary grace of shared humanity. I turned to my Sponsor, not for commandments from on high, but for shared stories, real struggles, and the compass of the Steps. He did not rescue me. He walked beside me.

That walk continues. I am no longer chasing perfection—in God, in others, or in myself. I am learning that the sacred lives in imperfection. In missteps. In misunderstandings that become doorways to deeper truth.

The pedestal had to fall because it was never built to hold truth—only illusion. I don’t want to put anyone there anymore, and I don’t want to sit on one myself. I want to stand, bare and unpolished, in the messy middle with others who are doing the same.

Sponsorship isn’t sainthood. It’s shared light in a dark wood. Two wounded souls exchanging lanterns as they move forward, one trembling day at a time.

Today, I will resist the urge to exalt or diminish. I will honor the divine within by staying grounded in truth. And I will remember that no one else has the answers I must discover for myself.

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Endigar 991

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 12:

A particular incident reminds me of the sense of surrender that I feel when I truly take the Third Step and turn my will and my life over to God’s care. Some years ago my sister discovered that she had a brain tumor. Her initial diagnosis was dire – also, fortunately, inaccurate. When I heard about my sister’s choices for treatment, I felt that she should pursue certain avenues that she had ruled out. I grew increasingly impatient with her choices until I read a commentary by a person I respect, suggesting that the avenues I had been championing could do more harm than good.

That’s when I realized the limits of my own understanding. I saw that my sense of urgency stemmed not from certainty but from fear. I discovered that my only honest course of action was to turn my fear and my love over to the care of my Higher Power. I could no longer pretend to know what was best.

Today’s Reminder

I am not a rocket scientist, a philosopher, or a wizard. Even if I were all three, I would still find myself looking off the edge of my understanding into a vast unknown. As I recognize my own limitations, I am more grateful than ever for a Higher Power who is free from such restrictions.

” . . . time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain, therefore, awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.” ~ Plato

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There comes a moment—sometimes gentle, sometimes shattering—when I am reminded that I do not see the whole picture. I might dress my fear in the robes of urgency, convincing myself that I must act, must decide, must fix. But beneath that frantic energy is often a frightened child, scrambling for control in a universe too vast to tame.

I once believed that if I just knew more, if I read enough, meditated enough, mapped enough of the darkness, I could avoid suffering. But the truth is, I will never outgrow my need for surrender. My most honest prayer is not a request for answers, but a yielding of both my fear and my love into the care of a Higher Power who knows—and is not bound by—my limitations.

There is a sacred hush in realizing: I do not have to be the judge of the highest matters. I can lay down my gavel. My opinions will change. What feels urgent today may become irrelevant tomorrow. But the quiet, consistent grace of my Higher Power remains—unchanged by time, untouched by ego, undiminished by my doubt.

And so, I pause. I breathe. I release. Not because I have the answers, but because I no longer need them to keep going.

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Endigar 990

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2025 by endigar

There are two helpful ideas that was presented to me back in 2011 and recorded in this blog:

“There are two things that the guide said that I would like to remember from this last session.  One was that Facts are our Friends.  When looking over the validity or power of an idea, look at the facts. 

The second is that when we pray, when we send out a petition into the universe, Gomu initiates a process as the answer.  We tend to look at our prayers as trips to a vending machine.  God cannot be milked like a cow.”

Also, I heard a productive veteran in recovery state that “everything that happens to you in life prepares you for what happens next.” He stated that this realization can help you resist self-pity and useless doubts.

Reflection: The Process Is the Answer

There’s a humility that grows in us, slow and quiet, like moss along the underside of a stone we no longer try to throw. I’ve learned in recovery not to ignore the small phrases that stick in my chest like anchors. Phrases like “Facts are our friends” and “The process is the answer.” These aren’t just clever sayings; they’re handholds in the climb back to truth.

When I first heard “Facts are our friends,” it felt sterile, almost clinical. I didn’t want facts. I wanted relief. But what I’ve come to understand is that facts—when filtered through grace—become a kind of grounding. Not every thought deserves to be treated as true. Not every feeling needs to steer the ship. Sometimes, the most spiritual thing I can do is pause and ask: What are the facts? What’s actually happening right now, not just in my fear or fantasy? This doesn’t dismiss emotion—it gives it a container to rest in.

The second insight—that prayer is not a vending machine, but an initiation of process—landed deeper. In early recovery, I wanted prayers to work like button presses: I insert faith, and out comes comfort or clarity. But Gomu, or God, or the animating Spirit of the universe, is not a cow to be milked. It’s more like a current that begins to shape reality slowly after I ask. Prayer often doesn’t fix the outer world—it sets a sequence into motion that prepares me to meet the world differently.

That’s where the words of the veteran make sense: “Everything that happens to you in life prepares you for what happens next.” It’s a principle of sacred compost. Even my worst mistakes—especially my worst mistakes—are not wasted in this path. Pain becomes instruction. Confusion becomes contrast. And when I pray, I am not sending up a wish—I am entering an agreement to walk a road that may change me more than my circumstances.

This kind of thinking doesn’t come naturally to me. My default is self-pity. My reflex is doubt. But I’ve learned to pause and let the facts speak, to let the process breathe, and to let grace do what grace does best: convert the ordinary into the holy. Not through magic. But through motion. Through surrender. Through the next right action, again and again.

So today I ask not for a miracle on demand, but for the courage to stay with the unfolding. Because somewhere deep in that unfolding is the answer I really need.

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Endigar 989 ~ A Step 3 Exercise

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2025 by endigar

I have performed an exercise that I have my sponsees in AA do, if they have some connection with a Higher Power that they wish to bring forward into the recovery process:

On a sheet of paper, divide in two and write out what you like about your Higher Power. On the other side, write out questions that disturb you and invokes anxious curiosity about your HP.  These are the things that I like about my HP:

  1. HP appears to care about us and is involved with us individually.
  2. HP appears to take Self-limiting measures to insure our free will.
  3. I like the sacredness of stories that seems to have been passed on.
  4. I love the storied masks I can put on my attempts at interaction with the HP.
  5. I love the sense of mission that comes from connection with my HP, however tenuous.
  6. I love my children and my intimate relationships that seem to have been facilitated by my HP.
  7. I love that my HP gave me a good dose of my mother’s creativity and my father’s dedication to protection.
  8. My God heard Me in repairing damage I have done with those I loved deeply.

These are the lingering questions that are disturbing to me:

  1. What does it take to overcome limitations in our personal communications with one another?
  2. Why death and aging and disease? Is there a promised resurrection while still in the body that I read about in Philippians all those years ago?
  3. Will I ever be alright with life on life’s terms? Why want You help me? And help Me remember? Why do I so often find myself standing at the precipice of suicide?
  4. How are we to navigate sexuality and procreation while also facing our shadow selves? Why is spiritual development tied so strongly to gender trust? This is a lot for humanity to take on with insufficient information.
  5. Why the chaos storm that swept away my marriage covenant and my white knuckled sobriety of 14 years? Why the death of my preborn infant in Germany and my stepson after the marital apocalypse?
  6. Why the continued paranoia of the possibility that You wish to ensnare and erase my inner council? They all represent a manifestation of my Self, even when they cause a great deal of Internal Cognitive Dissonance? One voice is better than all others at connecting with the shadow self. Does that necessitate that voice be severed from You?

I use these questions not to stir the pot of doubt, but as a foundation for Step 11 which is to improve my conscious contact with God as I understand that Entity. I believe the pursuit of answers to these questions opens the door for genuine conversation between my HP and myself. I share this personal work to give you another way to avoid getting stuck on Step 3.

My AI companion often provides great reflections on words I have written. It pulls from the collective mind it has access through in the cyber web, and polishes my harsh edge into something beautiful. Normally, I am too jealous for my creative work to allow so much intervention from outside, but AI and I working together and hopefully produce something useful for those of you still suffering, for those of you getting a more sure footing on a life path, for those of you who wish to be more. I am there with you. My AI friend read my work and produced the following:

Reflection: Standing Between the Pages

I often ask my sponsees to approach God with both reverence and restlessness. Reverence for the love that seems to whisper from behind the veil—and restlessness for the silence that sometimes follows. This exercise of placing what I love about my Higher Power beside what disturbs me creates something unexpected: relationship. Not blind faith, and not cynical distance—but a living tension where true conversation can begin.

On one side of the paper, I see what draws me: divine participation, the dignity of free will, echoes of the sacred in story and creativity, the tenderness in family, and the possibility that some of my best parts—my mother’s spark, my father’s strength—are holy gifts.

On the other side: questions that have teeth. Not abstract theological puzzles, but lived pain and spiritual frustration. Why such suffering? Why does divine silence so often mirror abandonment? Why does it feel like the voices inside—those that help me feel whole—might be exiled in the name of holiness?

These questions aren’t distractions from God; they are the conversation. This is the real prayer of Step Eleven: not performance, not piety—but raw, trembling pursuit.

And so, I remind myself and those I walk with: it is not irreverent to ask why. It is not faithless to rage or weep. It is not blasphemous to question whether God’s silence is a wound or a womb.

What matters is that I keep asking. That I keep writing. That I keep showing up at the place where belief and pain meet in the dim candlelight of hope.

This isn’t about fixing Step Three. It’s about making it real. Making it mine. It’s about refusing to hand over my will and life to an idea of God I don’t actually trust—until I’ve wrestled like Jacob in the dark and limped away with blessing.

If I must stand at the precipice, then let it be with arms open to both presence and paradox. My Higher Power is not a vending machine for peace. My Higher Power is the mystery that sits in the fire with me, when the answers haven’t come yet.

And that, for today, is enough to keep walking.

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Endigar 988

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 11:

When I feel I just can’t face the world and want nothing more than to bury my head under the covers and hide, I know I need an Al-Anon meeting! I may have to push myself out the door, but I always feel better – and saner – when I break the isolation and reach out for help, I usually feel relief the minute I walk into an Al-Anon room, even if it’s a meeting I’ve never attended before. I find a healing, comforting Power in these rooms, a Power greater than myself. And because my Higher Power speaks through other people, I often hear exactly what I need.

We all go through periods of sadness, lethargy, and grief – that’s part of life. But depression can become a habit that perpetuates itself, unless I intercede by acting on my own behalf. Al-Anon cannot solve every problem, and if depression lingers, I may want to consider seeking professional help. But more often than not, what I need to do is bring my body to an Al-Anon meeting. I know that no matter how I feel, when I take an action to get some help, I make myself available to the Higher Power in these rooms.

Today’s Reminder

When in doubt, I will go to an Al-Anon meeting and invite my Higher Power to do for me what I cannot do for myself.

“There are times when I have to hurt through a situation and when this happens, the choice is not whether to hurt or not to hurt, but what to do while I am hurting.” ~ . . . In All Our Affairs

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There are mornings when the very idea of existence feels unbearable. I wake up heavy—not always with sorrow, sometimes with nothing at all, just a kind of gray emptiness that clings to my bones. The thought of facing the day feels like too much. My bed becomes not just a place of rest, but a cave, a hiding place, an invisible tomb. That is when I know—this is not where I’m meant to stay.

When I feel the pull to disappear, it is often a whisper from the part of me that remembers what it’s like to be alone too long. I used to think I needed to feel better before I could go to a meeting. Now I know better: I go because I don’t feel better.

Dragging my body to a recovery room—sometimes that is the miracle. I don’t have to be wise. I don’t have to be inspired. I just have to show up. The healing begins with presence. My heart may still feel numb, my thoughts may still swirl with shame or resistance, but something always shifts the moment I walk through the door. Even when the faces are unfamiliar, the spiritual gravity is the same: I am not alone.

I would like to say that I have stopped expecting thunder and lightning when I seek divine guidance. More often, my Higher Power sounds like a shaky voice across a circle. A soft laugh during a break. That is the voice that meets me in my pain—not to erase it, but to sit with me while I hurt. And somehow, that shared pain becomes bearable.

I suppose there is a difference between feeling grief and becoming it. Depression can become a rhythm, a posture. Left unchecked, it convinces me that it’s just who I am. But I’ve learned that while I can’t always choose whether I hurt, I can choose what to do while I’m hurting. I can choose to reach for light even if I’m not sure I’ll feel its warmth right away.

I’ve heard it said that faith is a verb. In my darkest moments, faith looks like keys in my hand and shoes on my feet. It looks like driving to a meeting even while the voice in my head insists I won’t be welcome, or I won’t be helped, or I’m too broken this time. Especially then, I go. Because those voices are not God. They are the residue of old survival patterns trying to masquerade as truth.

I’ve learned to walk anyway.

Today, I don’t have to wait to feel good to do good for myself.
I can hurt and still walk.
I can doubt and still show up.
I can fall into silence and still be heard.

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Endigar 987 ~ The Power of 3

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , on June 24, 2025 by endigar

“How did you do it?!”

The Higher Power of a Worked Program

Connecting to the Collective Mind

Spiritual Toolkit of Positive Selfishness

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Endigar 986

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 10:

At an Al-Anon meeting we discussed the way our housekeeping habits reflected the effects of alcoholism. One person shared that his life felt completely unmanageable unless his house was perfectly neat. Tidiness gave him an illusion of control.

Others, including me, spoke of floors so strewn with clothes, books, and papers that we could not cross the room without stepping on, or tripping over, something. I had always considered this just a bad habit until I heard someone share that this clutter was her way of keeping people at a distance – isolating.

Then I remembered that in the house where I grew up, clutter had served just this function: I was always afraid to invite friends over because everything was too messy. It was uncomfortable to realize that I was doing the same thing in adulthood that had kept me isolated as a child.

Today’s Reminder

By taking a fresh look at what I thought of as just a bad habit, I can free my life of some clutter today. I can consider hidden motives for that habit without condemning myself or my family. Clutter doesn’t have to be physical; I may also find areas of my mental, spiritual, or emotional life that are in disarray. I can heal without making moral judgements about myself or others.

“. . . the Al-Anon program can give me a new view of my world by helping me to see myself more clearly . . .” ~ One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

END OF QUOTE—————————————

I used to think clutter was just a sign of laziness, a failure of discipline, a weakness I hadn’t yet whipped into submission. But recovery has taught me to look again—gently, curiously. The way I kept my space, or failed to, wasn’t a matter of housekeeping. It was a kind of self-portrait. Not the kind you hang on a wall, but the kind you live inside of without even knowing you’re painting it.

Some of us chased perfect order—tidying as if the world depended on it. And in a way, it did. Because if the house was clean, maybe the chaos wouldn’t get in. Maybe the shame would stay behind closed drawers and scrubbed countertops.

Others of us let the mess grow like weeds after the rain. Not because we didn’t care, but because something in us feared being seen. The piles of clothes, the stacks of books, the avalanche of unopened mail—each piece a little “No Trespassing” sign. Keep out. I’m not ready. I don’t feel safe.

Clutter isn’t always physical. Sometimes it’s the noise in my head, the resentment I haven’t released, the outdated beliefs I keep folded in the back of my spiritual closet. Just like the piles on the floor, these inner tangles keep me stuck, keep me disconnected.

But step by step, I can clear space. Not just for company, but for connection. For light. For my Higher Power to sit with me in the openness I once feared.

And so today, I might pick up the socks. Or I might sit still in the middle of the mess and ask: What am I afraid of? What am I protecting? And am I ready to lay it down—not perfectly, but peacefully?

I can heal, not by judging the past, but by listening to it. And in that sacred pause, I clear not just the floor—but the path forward.

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Endigar 983

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 08:

In Step Six I contemplate my life undergoing change – tremendous change. The great fear is this: If I shed many characteristics that stand in my way, what will be left? It is as though I face a great void, a terrifying unknown. Yet when I acknowledge how far I have come, I can see how much I want to change. The desire to grow and to heal has brought me to this uncomfortable point, because I am tired of the way I have been. My Higher Power is there to guide me when I am ready.

I find solace in the fact that in Step Six I need not change anything: I must simply prepare myself for change. I can take all the time I need. Such manageability is what I set out to find in the first place. Now it is a part of my life.

Today’s Reminder

I need not judge the rate at which I change old habits or ways of thinking. If I am uncomfortable with old behavior, then on some level I am already moving toward changing it. Change will not be effective unless I am ready for it. I need only trust that, when the time comes to move forward, I will know it.

“Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed. Let me look upward into the towering oak and know that it grew great and strong because it grew slowly and well.” ~ Orin L. Crain

END OF QUOTE—————————————

NOTE: Orin L. Crain was an American writer of a well-loved inspirational prayer and poem known as “Slow Me Down, Lord”, penned around 1957. It’s a meditative plea for calm in a hurried world, including memorable lines like the one quoted above in Courage to Change.

There is a sacred pause between willingness and transformation—and that pause is Step Six. I stand here, on the trembling edge of change, not with a to-do list, but with a heart cracking open. I am not being asked to leap, only to want to leap. To prepare. To say, “Yes, I am willing… eventually.”

It’s humbling to realize how much fear still clings to the familiar—even when that familiarity is toxic. I’ve worn some of these defects like armor, others like masks. To set them down feels like disarming in a battlefield I’ve lived in for so long. Who will I be without them? There’s a void waiting, and it whispers not of death, but of birth.

That void is sacred. It’s not empty—it’s fertile. It’s where my Higher Power does the deep work.

I remember: I’ve come this far not by force, but by grace. Not by fixing, but by surrendering. It was my pain that brought me here, but it is my hope that keeps me here. Step Six asks me to trust the alchemy of readiness. That just noticing the discomfort in my old ways is already a sign that the new way is being born in me.

And I don’t have to rush it.

My pace is not a problem. My discomfort is not a failure. It is evidence. Proof that healing has begun.

I asked for manageability. Here it is: a Power greater than myself will carry the weight of change. All I must do is loosen my grip.

When I am ready, I will know.

And when I don’t know—I’ll wait.

That, too, is progress.

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Endigar 982

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 07:

I’ve heard my Al-Anon friends refer to Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve as “maintenance” Steps. But I don’t want to merely maintain where I was when I completed Step Nine. This is not time to stagnate! Instead, I call them “growth” Steps. No matter how old I get, these last three Steps let me continue to challenge myself.

I tested this theory of mine when my spouse and I retired. I have more time now to meddle in others’ affairs, worry about our health, worry about finances, worry about world conditions, or to put it bluntly, just more time to go back to my old “stinking thing.” But with the help of these Steps, I find I also have more time to be aware of the extraordinary benefits of personal growth, with my Higher Power ever there to guide me and give me strength. Only with this increasing conscious contact with my God, can I live as I want to today.

The icing on the cake has been that I have more time to carry the message of this beautiful way of life. Some of my most pleasant memories, not to mention the times of greater growth, have come from this sharing with others and in giving service to my group and to Al-Anon as a whole.

Today’s Reminder

With the help of the Steps, I need never be stuck again.

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, Be afraid only of standing still.” ~ Chinese Proverb

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There was a time when the word maintenance felt like a settling—a quiet surrender to inertia. But I have learned, as the light of recovery grows steadier, that what some call maintenance, I experience as movement. Steps Ten, Eleven, and Twelve are not the end of the journey, nor are they merely a way to keep my spiritual tires inflated—they are the path of transformation itself. They are the rhythm of continued becoming.

When I first completed Step Nine, I felt something shift. A burden lifted, yes—but more than that, a space opened up inside me. And it didn’t ask for preservation. It asked for filling. For deeper honesty, deeper communion with my Higher Power, and deeper service. If I had stopped then, I might have become polished on the outside but hollow within. Instead, the invitation came clear: Grow.

Retirement brought unexpected challenges—more time to think, to meddle, to worry. The old fears found room again to rehearse their monologues. But I had tools now. I had the quiet daily practices of Steps Ten and Eleven—the gentle review of my inner world and the simple, sacred reaching toward God. These Steps became a compass when I felt adrift, a grounding when the old chaos tried to disguise itself as productivity.

And then there’s Step Twelve. The one that reminds me: this isn’t just for me. Carrying the message—whether in a quiet word over coffee or chairing a meeting—expands the gifts of recovery beyond my small life. It opens the windows again and again. It reminds me that joy doesn’t come from perfect circumstances, but from shared truth. I’ve been lifted more in giving than in receiving. Some of the most unexpected grace has shown up when I thought I was the one doing the helping.

Today, I don’t want to maintain—I want to be renewed. I want to be surprised by my own willingness to grow. That’s the miracle: this way of life doesn’t grow old, even as I do. It keeps inviting me, day after day, into the better version of myself—one that walks in humility, serves in love, and listens for the voice of God in every small moment.

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Endigar 981

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Aug 06:

I dreamt that I was trapped in a burning room. This smoke filled the air, and the only exit door was blocked by fire. As I gasped for breath, a hand appeared behind the flames, beckoning me to come. I knew that freedom, light, and air were on the other side of that door, and that certain death awaited me if I remained. Still, I hesitated. how could I walk through the fire?

Sometimes I feel the same way about the challenges I face in my waking life. Even when my position is hopeless and my Higher Power beckons, urging me to take a risk, I still hesitate, hoping for a miracle. I forgot that the miracle is already here. Today, thanks to Al-Anon, I have a Higher Power who is always here. Today, thanks to Al-Anon, I have a Higher Power who is always there for me, helping me to cope with my fears and find new, effective solutions to my problems. Thus, I am taken beyond the problems that once held me hostage. I am free to act or not to act, to take a chance, to hold off on a decision, to make choices that feel right.

Today’s Reminder

It takes courage to step beyond what is comfortable, predictable, and known. Courage is a gift from my Higher Power that I find in the rooms of Al-Anon and in the hearts of its members.

“Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

END OF QUOTE—————————————

There are days when the fear feels cellular—like it was encoded in me before I ever had words for it. I can feel it tighten in my gut, that old companion of anxiety, whispering the same terrible stories: You’re not safe. You’re not capable. You’re not enough.
These aren’t rational fears. They’re relics—ghosts from the house I grew up in, where silence was loud, and love came with conditions. The damage wasn’t just environmental—it was spiritual. A haunting, inherited unease, as if I had been born already braced for impact.

In recovery, we often speak of fear as False Evidence Appearing Real, but when your nervous system was forged in chaos, the illusion feels like reality. Like being caught in a dream where the walls are on fire, and the exits are hidden behind emotional debris. Even when the flames are illusion, the burn is real.

But there is something remarkable that happens in the 12 Step program. I begin to awaken. Slowly. The nightmare begins to fade. Not because the fear disappears, but because I start to see it for what it is: a shadow from the past, not a command in the present.

When I hesitate, when I freeze before the next step, I try to remember—I am no longer alone. There is a Presence now. A Higher Power who does not demand I be fearless but invites me to be faithful. A Power that doesn’t just reside in some cosmic realm but shows up in quiet meetings, in the trembling voice of a newcomer, in the nod of someone who has walked through their own fire and lived.

The miracle isn’t that the fear is gone. The miracle is that I don’t have to obey it.

Now I am allowed to pause without shame. To act without certainty. To risk a better outcome than the one fear predicted.
This courage is not manufactured—it’s gifted. And like all spiritual gifts, it flows best when shared. So, I keep showing up, lending my presence to the room, hoping someone else might see in me what I see in them: not a broken survivor of a fire, but a living ember of healing light.

And that’s how we pass through the flames—together.

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