One of the early lessons those of us new to recovery should quickly learn is that rigidity in our beliefs and our plans of action is a shortsighted approach to our newfound sobriety. The truth is that there are many paths to recovery, and one is not better than another. Indeed, whenever we find ourselves casting stones on this or that manner of approaching recovery than someone else is engaged in, we should immediately listen to that little voice inside our head that should be telling us to "Back off."

Who are we to know what works best for another? We are more than likely actively engaged in trying to figure out the best path for ourselves. And that is as it should be.

Let’s think about how we got here to begin with, just for starters. Did we all follow the same route to sobriety? Of course we didn’t. How, then, could we ever believe – even for a second – that there’s only one way to maintain our sobriety? Putting it into perspective often helps, so when we think about our journey so far, we can pretty easily recognize that we are each unique.

What about recommended strategies, those that we hear talked about in the 12-step rooms? Sure, it’s well and good that we listen to what has worked effectively for others, but we should never put ourselves in a box and think that if we try something similar and don’t get results that there’s something wrong with us or with the approach. There simply isn’t. Maybe we weren’t ready to attempt that sort of approach, or perhaps we’ve tried it before and are too quick to write it off as unsuccessful – when, in fact, it might be appropriate for us at this juncture.

If we remain rigid in our beliefs, we’ll never be able to get past the logjam of negativity that we accumulate in our heads. Telling ourselves that we can’t do this because it won’t work, it never worked before, and it couldn’t possibly work for us will only be an exercise in futility. That’s because we’re subconsciously programming ourselves for failure. That’s never a healthy approach, but the good news is that we don’t have to think this way. We can change what we believe and how we go about structuring our life in recovery.

Yes, structure is important in recovery. This is especially true in early recovery when we are often flailing about, trying to find our footing, desperately doing all that we can to remain clean and sober. For heaven’s sake, we know it isn’t easy. We’re likely to become depressed, anxious, frightened, and unsure of what to do or where to go or even whom to trust.

It’s all part of finding our path in recovery.

How should we start? What feels right to us? Is it finding that one individual we feel safe and secure confiding in? Is this our sponsor? If we don’t yet have a sponsor, one recommendation is to put this at the top of our to-do list. Once we have a sponsor, we can become more actively engaged in putting together our recovery plan, or fleshing out the plan that we began in rehab. What we need is someone who can guide us through the early stages of recovery, get us acclimated with the Principles of Recovery, and help us navigate the Twelve Steps. There’s no one better to do this than our sponsor.

We should also cultivate and nurture our support network at home, since those who know and care for us the most will be extremely helpful in our journey of recovery. While our family members and loved ones can’t do our recovery work for us, they are integral participants in helping to create the kind of loving and supportive environment that’s so beneficial to our recovery.

Just remember this: If you can think of a way that works for you, that’s another path of recovery. You can have many paths, not just one, so the reality of your recovery is pretty open. And that should be both inspiring and comforting.

When others recommend that we keep ourselves motivated in order to keep making progress toward our goals, why is it that we often take that as some kind of a reproach? It isn’t as if we’re not trying, we might object to ourselves. It’s just that it’s not as easy as just saying to ourselves to get motivated. What do they know, anyway, is another question we may ask ourselves?

Maybe we’re taking this a little bit too seriously. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to lighten up about the subject of motivation. After all, we don’t have anything to lose by taking time out to think about it, do we? At least it’s something that’s other than thinking about our problems and getting down in the dumps about that.

For starters, think about the likelihood of never wanting to feel joy again. If we remain mired in a constant state of negativity, we’re not very likely to change anything – about our behavior, our beliefs, or our future. We do have freedom of choice, however, so we can adopt a different mind-set that may have a profound effect on our daily existence.

And living is all about the present. We know for a fact that we cannot live in the past nor can we inhabit the future. Even if we were cloned, there’s only the here and now. But that is a unique thought, so let’s stay with it for a bit. Think of ourselves as multiples, living all sorts of lives. What would our "other" be doing right now? What sort of occupation would our other be engaged in? Would we envision our other as a happy individual? Would we see our other as in recovery from addiction or struggling to get by as we believe we currently are?

The idea of many copies of us running around the planet may provoke a smile, and that’s as it should be. But the larger issue it brings up is what do we really want for ourselves? If we can seize upon a goal, maybe one that has seemed to elude us for quite some time or one that has never before seemed possible, that’s a good way to begin. We can visualize our other firmly committed to such a goal and start imagining what steps would be taken in order to achieve it. If we can get to that step in our visualization process, we can transfer that energy into action plans that we can adopt for the real McCoy – us.

Another point about motivation that we might not have thought of is that it doesn’t have to feel normal or right in order for it to be effective. We probably won’t start off feeling super motivated. We may be somewhat ambivalent toward an idea or a goal, possibly even more than a little convinced that it’s a real stretch for us, given our current capabilities – real or perceived. But this is also a good thing, because it allows us much room to grow. So, just because we’re not all fired up at the outset doesn’t mean that we’re not going in the right direction, motivation-wise.

How do others around us in the 12-step rooms seem to handle staying motivated? What stories have we heard them relate about how they rose above their hopelessness or uncertainties and began to take their first steps toward achievement of their goals? Is there something there that we can take to heart and use in our own situation? Surely there is, if we open our ears and listen and then allow the suggestions to germinate in our minds.

Our sponsor is another invaluable person to consult in our quest to figure out how to become more motivated. Wherever we are in our thoughts right now, however dubious we remain about our prospects in recovery, our sponsor has heard such lamentations before. Who better to give us guidance and sage advice on how to begin to address problems and issues and start navigating our new life in sobriety?

Time is also something that needs to be taken into consideration. Think about how much stronger we are today than we were before, say, when we were in the depths of our addiction prior to rehab. Now that we’re clean and sober, we may not have all the answers, but we’re certainly a whole lot better off. And guess what? We did that. We worked hard to overcome our addiction and to set upon the path of recovery. That’s a tremendous accomplishment that should give us a great deal of self-satisfaction.

Now it’s time to continue that remarkable progress, one day at a time, one action at a time. Give it our best and learn from what we achieve. This is a daily activity that will get easier the more that we do it, starting with right now.

We often hear about change in recovery. What a difference our lives will be like because of all the changes, the opportunity to make literally life-changing alterations of course, changing our outlook, making great changes, and things like that. Frankly, for many of us in recovery, especially during our early days of being clean and sober, the very idea of change scares the living daylights out of us.

What’s at play here is simply that we don’t feel we are ready. We may be frightened of what may lie ahead, since we have no control over it, we tell ourselves, and we’re not yet ready to venture into that great unknown. And it is the unknown that most bothers us, isn’t it? What we don’t know about, we fear. That’s human nature. But fear doesn’t have to rule our lives. We can learn to take things slowly and at our own pace and gradually learn to not only appreciate change, but learn how to best manage it.

In short, change is multifaceted. There is no single change. We are always changing, each second that we breathe, every step that we take, literally and figuratively. We are not the same person as we were yesterday. We have metamorphosed into something different, someone new.

This has occurred, and continues to occur, because we have made decisions that affect our lives in simple and profound ways. Some are little, almost imperceptible changes, such as offering a smile to a stranger we pass by on the street, whereas we never before may have looked up from the ground or kept our eyes averted, as if we had something to hide.

Some changes make a big impact on our lives, as the decision we made to go into rehab and get clean and sober. That was no doubt a long and laborious decision that didn’t come easily to us, but we did make it. We did enter treatment. We did stick with the program. We did come out cleansed of the substances that had laid claim to our lives.

Still, we’re not sure what to do all the time. Make that most of the time, when we’re first into recovery. It’s all too new. We aren’t sure what to say, what to do, where to go. We need a guide. We need help. We need someone to show us the path.

That’s where our 12-step sponsor comes in. Not that our sponsor is a God or even a therapist. He or she is neither. But what our sponsor does for us is universally the same, to a more or less degree, depending on the individual personalities and our willingness to embrace change. Our sponsor helps us navigate those early days in recovery when we’re most vulnerable, when we’re fearful of making mistakes that could land us in relapse, and when we’re so at a loss that we don’t trust any of our decisions.

One of the things we’ll learn from our sponsor is to take it easy, to be gentle with ourselves, and to approach each day in recovery doing the best we can. In other words, live in the present. Experience the moment. Given the circumstances, weigh and balance our actions before we act. Keep our sobriety commitment at the forefront, helping to guide our daily actions, but also keep goals in mind and strive to craft plans of action that will bring us closer to achievement of those goals.

We may not like some of the changes. What do we do about that? We may not like having to go to 12-step meetings so often, feeling them an intrusion into our lives, forcing us to be with people when we’d rather be off by ourselves. This is just one example of a change that we may not like, but since so many in recovery have said this was an issue for them, it’s a good one to consider. What we do in this instance is to change our attitude toward the change. By changing our attitude, we change our outlook, our hopes for the future. Look on the meetings as a building-block process. We need to begin to build the foundation for our recovery, and meetings are a good way to start.

Remember, little steps forward result in changes that we can begin to realize is of our own doing. This is multifaceted change, and it is a hallmark of effective recovery.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could swallow a glass of courage each morning, just as we drink our orange juice or coffee with breakfast? Each of us has experienced situations where we are afraid that we won’t have what it takes, fearing that we lack the courage of our convictions or even the wherewithal to keep doing the work of recovery. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’ve all been there, and most of us more than once.

But courage is often elusive, especially when we’re in the first few months of recovery. We’re so caught up in the scheduling and the meetings and finding our sponsor and getting accustomed to this new life we’ve chosen in sobriety that it’s often all we can do just to keep our heads above water. Each of us knows what it feels like to be a little overwhelmed, or even a lot overwhelmed, as we embrace this new life.

Yet courage is something to not only strive for, but to be appreciated for the blessing that it is. Courage doesn’t mean that we don’t have fear. Courage is going forward in action despite fear.

What happens after we’ve faced a particularly tough challenge, gone forward in action, and come out on the other side? When we’ve acted with courage, we naturally feel a sense of accomplishment and relief. We feel a lessening of a burden, the burden of inaction or fear of disastrous results either because we couldn’t go through with something or what we did do might not work. Once we act in courage, we’ve given it our best effort, and we have nothing to be ashamed of then, whatever the result.

Let’s look at the analogy of soldiers in war, preparing to meet the enemy. Soldiers going forth in battle are not unafraid. If they lacked fear, they’d be robots, devoid of feeling. And going forward in battle with courage in the face of fear also doesn’t guarantee victory. But if we give everything we have when we act in recovery, there is nothing that can diminish our effort. We’ve fought the good fight, and we know that we didn’t hold back – even if we were fearful of the outcome.

We do need to acknowledge our fear first, and then we can tell ourselves that we are fully capable of doing what is necessary to push past that fear, summoning up our courage to act. Fear is lack of action. Courage is acting. When we look at it this way, it doesn’t sound so difficult, does it?

Practice this a little at a time. When we feel afraid to act, try to understand what lies at the root of the fear. Is it that we’re afraid of being rejected, of failing in our attempt? Is it that we don’t think we have enough experience or knowledge to go forward? By analyzing what we think is missing, and going after that knowledge or experience or seeking counsel from wise others, such as our sponsor, we build up our supply of courage. When we feel that we do have sufficient knowledge, or the situation is such that it demands action, we will be able to move ahead and act – and that means we have the courage of our convictions.

Men and women drink essentially because they like the affect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many people do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.

Oh how familiar that sounds to so many who have wondering, “Do I have a drinking problem?”

The most critical phrase in the doctor’s opinion is this: “…unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.”

I’m sure many of you have watched people relapse over and over, or maybe you have experienced that yourself.  The shift in behavior, attitude, and thinking that enables a person to get and stay sober is no small undertaking.  It is profound because, frankly, most humans do not change all that much in their lifetimes.  Our personalities are set, and we tend to live a certain way until the day we die.  No one with any sense of reality thinks this is an easy thing to do.  Most of our behaviors have been adaptive – reacting to parents, peers, life in general – although I would argue that many of those behaviors are actually maladaptive.

What does that mean? It means there is a very core self that holds tight to old behaviors because they feel like the only way to survive. Something,  at sometime, set in motion behaviors that seemed right in a certain context, but now continually lead us into trouble – trouble in relationships, trouble with emotional balance, trouble in careers, maybe even trouble with the law.

So while those behaviors might have made us feel like we were surviving stuff when we were 12 or 14, now they are just spinning us in a never-ending cycle of despair.  Life is not full when you live that way.

I remember early in sobriety I wanted that lightening bolt – the thing that would shift my consciousness so utterly that change would be easy.  How many of you are smiling at that?

So far, no lightening bolt. Although I have had major, dynamic shifts in thinking that seemed to come on suddenly, in reality they came after months or years of focusing on doing things differently. It’s sort of like when you practice and practice your game of tennis or your sonata on the piano, then one day it just really clicks and you realize, wow, I’m really doing it!  You didn’t suddenly become good, but when you hit that groove it can feel like you had a phenomenal breakthrough all of a sudden.  Nope. Work. And lots of it.