Just think how many hours we waste worrying about what might happen? When we’re so fearful of change, we not only cut ourselves off from an infinite number of opportunities, we also stunt our growth and halt our progress in recovery.

Fear and worry about change are understandable, but they are also extremely unproductive. We carry with us a lot of baggage when we first get clean and sober and begin recovery. It cannot be otherwise. After all, we’ve just ditched a lifestyle that was self-destructive and going nowhere. We have a lot yet to learn and probably feel more than just a little hesitation about what this new sobriety thing is all about.

Naturally, we’d be anxious and confused about what lies ahead. If we’ve never been down this road before, all the more so would we be so concerned. But even those among us who’ve been through several relapses and managed to get back into our recovery program can feel hesitant and worried that we’re not up to the changes.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Change is inevitable. This doesn’t mean, however, that change is bad. In fact, if we are to make substantial progress in recovery, we need to adopt the attitude that change is necessary and change is good.

Sure, there may be some pain attached to change. Letting go of old habits and behaviors, even though they may have been all we knew, can be frightening and painful. Getting involved in a sober lifestyle, going to meetings where we don’t initially know anyone and taking up the whole Twelve Step process can be pretty scary – at first.

But be comforted in the knowledge that we aren’t going it alone. We have the support and encouragement of our soon-to-be sponsor (and we shouldn’t wait too long to get one) and our fellow 12-step group members. Every single person that steps foot in the rooms has had to go through the doorway the first time. Therefore, every single one of them knows how it feels to embark upon this journey.

Yes, it may be scary. Yes, we may initially worry and fret that we might not be up to the change. But change we must if we are to make progress in this life of recovery. It’s also important to remind ourselves that we have chosen to be clean and sober. We have made a commitment to recovery and want to learn how to change our lifestyle so that we can be productive and happy in sobriety.

That said, however, we’re still plagued with nagging doubt and worry over what we no longer have, what’s been taken away from us (our addictive ways), and possibly the people, place and things that we now must avoid because they’re associated with our past drug use.

How about this as an alternative? Instead of thinking along the dark lines of what’s missing or no longer here, think instead about all the new things we’ll be learning, the new friends we’ll make, the new challenges and opportunities that are bound to come our way. This is a proactive approach and isn’t all that difficult to do. Sure, it will take some practice to adjust our thinking from one of negativity to one that’s positive, but we can certainly do it. Thousands of others in the rooms have done so. They’ll also be glad to give us pointers on what worked for them in beginning their mental readjustment.

In a way, it’s a little like Christmas presents under the tree. We don’t know what’s in them, since they’re all wrapped up and hidden from view. But we’re pretty sure we’re going to like them. Think about change and embracing change in recovery that way and we’ll be on the road to accepting the gifts of opportunity that come our way.

We who are in recovery have a lot to be joyful about. For one thing, we’re alive. That may be a shock to some of us who most recently were in the throes of addiction, but life is life and it is cause for celebration, however difficult the path to get here was. Why, then, do some of us walk around as if we have a big, dark cloud over our heads? Why do we continue to steep ourselves in thoughts of our past misdeeds and prevent our progress going forward in recovery?

It may very well be that we lack the ability to affirm life, due primarily to our own self-imposed prohibitions. In short, we don’t allow ourselves to affirm life or to think much beyond where we are currently. Many of us, in fact, remain mired in the past, despite our protestations to the contrary.

How do we get past this past-view and move more into the present? How can we stop self-censoring our thoughts and allow ourselves to develop according to our goals and desires? Here are some suggestions.

• Turn on your joyful meter – We all have this, whether we realize it or not. No, it’s not an actual switch that we can physically turn on, but it is a mental mind-set that we can program ourselves to adopt. What we mean by turning on our joyful meter is no more than giving ourselves the permission to see life in all its beauty and to allow ourselves to experience joy. This is permission that we grant to ourselves to affirm life, to bestow it with reverence, and appreciate its true value.
• Know when to change direction – When we find ourselves wandering down the path of self-pity, self-recrimination, guilt and shame, we need to learn how and when to change direction. That is, be cognizant of when and where our thoughts start veering in this negative direction and make a conscious effort to turn them around into something more positive and conducive to our recovery. A few times of telling ourselves that there’s no good reason to beat ourselves up about past mistakes and encouraging ourselves to get moving and do our recovery work today will help immensely in getting our course direction corrected.
• Recognize that all life is to be revered – Life is a great mystery. None of us knows exactly how it all came about, although many of us believe in certain philosophical constructs as a matter of faith. We are here, not by our own creation, but by something larger and infinitely more mysterious and powerful than mere mortal intervention. Granted, we do create our existence here on this earth by virtue of our everyday actions. We can and should, however, respect all forms of life, large and small, and hold them in high regard as one more aspect of our affirmation of life.
• Adopt positive attitudes – There are always two ways of looking at things, people, situations, thoughts. There’s the negative way, in which we cast everything in a bad light. The opposite of this is, of course, the positive way, in which we choose to look at things from a more optimistic perspective. Whenever we find ourselves venturing down the path of condemnation and negativity, switch gears and re-program our thoughts to think more along the lines of what can be done here and now. This simple change of our mind-set can make a huge difference in our daily outlook and on how we begin to affirm our life.
• Reflect daily on our progress – We make changes in our lives every single day, but many of us fail to take even the briefest amount of time to contemplate what we’ve accomplished today, how far we’ve progressed toward our goals, or even to reflect how much better we feel now that we are looking at life with more reverence and optimism. Take five minutes to think about our day. If we’ve made a few mistakes, identify how and why that happened and strategize how to approach the same or similar situations differently the next time. This helps give us momentum and direction and also stimulates our affirmation of life.

Confidence is a trait that is to be admired. Everyone wants to possess confidence, to be full of enthusiasm and feel ready to tackle whatever lies before us. But not all of us think that we possess confidence or, worse yet, that we cannot ever hope to achieve it.

Thus, we get a glimpse of the two sides of confidence: We either have it and we help spread it around, or we don’t have it and are the worse for it.

But is a lack of confidence something that we can really remedy? If we’ve never been confident in our lives, is there any hope that we’ll one day wake up and start feeling like we’re capable of doing things that are necessary and helpful for our recovery?

In a word, yes. There isn’t any big secret about how to achieve confidence, but it does require effort. We don’t just absorb confidence. We have to work at building it up.

And, yes, we can become energized by the confidence or confident attitude of others, but we still have to do the hard work ourselves in order for us to add to our reservoir of self-confidence.

Let’s take the example of feeling confident in our ability to withstand cravings and urges to use, now that we’re in recovery. In the beginning, when we’re new to recovery, we likely lack confidence. After all, we haven’t had a very good track record at being able to fight them in the past. Now, even though we’re clean and sober, we may be uncertain of our ability to remain that way. Not that we don’t want to, but the first time that overwhelming craving hits, we could find ourselves in a bit of a quandary.

Do we give in to the craving and thus put our recovery in jeopardy? Or do we take the time to do what has proven effective for others in the 12-step rooms? Do we recognize that cravings only last for a short period of time and do some of the techniques that others say have worked for them, such as distraction, numbers, organizing, physical exercise, meditation, and so forth? If we apply ourselves and work hard to achieve our goal – in this case, to successfully combat cravings – we achieve success in our endeavor. This action should bolster our sense of confidence.

Repeat the action the next time cravings strike. If one technique proves effective, make use of it again – and build up even more confidence. If it doesn’t work or works less effectively than before, try modifying the technique, adding or replacing some aspect of it with something else we’ve heard about in the rooms or from our sponsor. The more success we have in this area, which, by the way, is just one example of how to begin building our confidence, the more confident we will start to feel about our ability to be successful in other areas of our recovery.

How about being confident in our daily lives, going back to work or school or dealing with personal challenges at home or with friends? Many of us have gone through a rough time of it getting through treatment and are now trying to pick up the pieces of our lives. We know that there will be difficult times ahead and we may feel reluctant, unsure, afraid or even confused about our ability to make the right choices. Again, talking with our sponsor and listening to the stories of others who’ve been clean and sober for a long time will probably help us to realize that we will feel better about ourselves in time. And we do need to allow ourselves to begin the healing process, to do the hard work of recovery, and to take our step-by-step path toward recovery. The good news is that confidence will start to build within us, more each and every day.

Can we just will ourselves into recovery? If it were really that simple, it’s likely that everyone would be in recovery. Unfortunately, recovery is a little more complicated than that. Just as there’s no single solution that works for everyone, there’s also no single timetable that’s universal.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we’re each capable of recovery. We do, however, need to galvanize our self-determination and make things happen. That requires action, consistent and constant and forward-moving action.

When it comes to figuring out what it is that we want out of our new life in sobriety, however, many of us falter. Whether we’re unsure or afraid of the future and what we want or should be doing for our recovery, this is a normal feeling – especially in the early months of recovery when everything is so new. We have so much to learn that we may feel inundated and a bit overwhelmed at times, but this is also normal and nothing to worry about.

The key is to find something each day that we can do that helps further our recovery plan. It doesn’t have to be a big thing to be meaningful. In the beginning, when we have just begun recovery, simply attending 12-step meetings on a regular basis will help ground us in recovery principles and help us maintain a solid and consistent schedule, so important to regaining balance in our lives.

Gradually, we can add more items on our to-do list, but we should never put too much on our plates at once. That’s tantamount to fueling a sense of inadequacy and may lead to us abandoning our plans and goals altogether or in part. Not a good thing. Instead, try to balance out each day so that there’s adequate time to rest and recharge. Keep some time to ourselves so that we can analyze what went right today, what we did that was successful and/or helped us achieve progress toward our goals, or what we did that somehow fell a little short of our expectations. In other words, we need to take the time to look at what we do each day to see how we can learn from it. In so doing, we need to revise or alter our action plan for the coming day so that we can take advantage of what today’s actions have shown us.

Of course, we can look at each day in two diametrically opposed ways. We can look at what we’ve done and beat ourselves up about perceived failures or shortcomings or we can maintain a positive outlook, acknowledging the effort we put into our actions today and learning from whatever the results may have been. Which do we think helps motivate us to keep moving forward in recovery?

The answer, undoubtedly, is the positive outlook. When we can take our emotional temperature and decide for ourselves how we are going to address challenges and issues that crop up, we are better able to navigate what may be stormy weather. There will be times when we need to pause and reconnoiter our position, to adjust our plans, possibly even alter our course for a time. How we tend to look at our life is purely up to us. No one else can do this for us.

So, since we make our own weather, so to speak, we can create the emotional universe within which we choose to live. Given this analogy, who would ever choose to live in a non-stop atmosphere of turbulence, constant storms and perilous floods? Rather, we can choose to inhabit our own universe that accommodates sunny skies (positive outlook) and calls up the wind when needed (motivation) so that we can make progress toward our destination (recovery).

Audrey Hepburn was a classic and classy actress well-known for her spunkiness and boundless cheerfulness. Yet she was no Pollyanna. She recognized the reality of the world, but refused to allow bad things to reduce her optimistic outlook. Look at her quote about how nothing is impossible. Taking the word apart and arriving at "I’m possible" from "impossible" is a classic case of making lemonade out of lemons.

And that’s just how we should approach what seem to be obstacles or roadblocks on our recovery journey.

Let’s face it. We’re all familiar with the unexpected things that pop up and threaten to derail our plans. Whether it’s someone that appears from our past that we feel we’re not prepared to deal with, or a change of direction that’s required in our pursuit of a current goal, if it comes out of the blue, we’re often at a loss as to what direction to take. How do we deal with what may appear to be insurmountable odds? What is the best way to approach these types of difficulties?

Naturally, one way is to avoid them, to turn our backs on them and go a different and somewhat easier route. But that rarely works, because in choosing to avoid circumstances and situations that are challenges, we are not giving ourselves the opportunity to learn from them and grow. But we all are prone to engage in this type of avoidance behavior at some point. And we’re not talking about avoiding known people, places and things associated with our past addictive behavior. We’re talking about avoiding taking that tough test or failing to register for that hard class that we know we need to pass in order to achieve our goal of a certain degree, of avoiding this or that Step because it’s just too painful or we know it will be tough for us to handle.

Avoidance, while it is an option many choose to take, doesn’t solve anything. What can we do to help ourselves see beyond the impossible to the possible? For one thing, we can take stock of our current achievements. This will help bolster our self-esteem and remind us that we do have what it takes to achieve positive results in the face of obstacles that we’ve overcome. The more we have tackled and affected the desired outcome, the better we should feel about ourselves and our capabilities.

In other words, the more we do, the more we learn and grow and the stronger we become in our recovery.

Look at it this way. If someone told us, way back in the early days of our recovery, when we first stepped foot in the 12-Step rooms, that we’d be celebrating our one-year anniversary of sobriety, get a new job or promotion, mend fences with our estranged loved ones or family, or any of a multitude of other seemingly unattainable goals, we’d have dismissed the idea as impossible.

But, guess what we did? We did the impossible. We did that. Sure, it helped if we had the support and encouragement of others, principally our sponsor, fellow 12-Step group members, our loved ones and family. But it was our hard work that allowed us to achieve those goals. We had to do it, despite any obstacles that appeared along the way.

We can all take a lesson from this. What may seem impossible today will become the possible tomorrow, but we have to take action in order for that to happen. We cannot be fearful and fall back on a pattern of rejecting certain goals as unattainable. We cannot limit ourselves or curtail our dreams simply because we cannot see how we can get there. Think of the seemingly unattainable goals as perhaps stretch goals. We know we’ll need to take some interim steps in order to get there. Maybe our goals will change along the way. In fact, many of our goals do shift as we realize where our true potential or desire for our life’s work lies.