I just spent the morning on the way to work praying, asking God to please “give me recovery.”

I felt like God interrupted me “give you recovery? You ARE in recovery.”

“But God….” I went on to say, giving reasons why I didn’t feel like I was in recovery.

Until God spoke and said “You can’t compare your recovery. Recovery is different for each person, what works for someone else won’t work for everyone. And alot of times, you re-injure yourself during the healing progress and have to start over.” “Just because you didn’t have an ‘ah ha’ moment and become free all at once does not make yours any less recovery. You may think being clean of alcohol and hard drugs aren’t ‘recovery enough’ because you still struggle with cigarettes and gummies…. but those aren’t alcohol and drugs…. you have made progression. Don’t belittle your progress because it isn’t the same as others. Some are further along than you, and others aren’t in, it’s not a race…. its life.

No one gets a prize for getting there first or without failures.

Everyone, is fighting for their recovery wins in the end. You win peace. Stability. Joy. Happiness. Freedom.

Failing doesn’t mean starting over. Failure doesn’t mean defeat. Failure means that you still have “stuff” to surrender.

You are in recovery. You have no failed. Keep going. One foot in front of the other. Until one day you look back and see that you have walked out your complete freedom one step at a time.