When we think about the world’s greatest inventors, the poets and actors and religious and other leaders that have so inspired us, we should also take a moment to reflect on their determination and indefatigability. They simply never gave up.

Look at the genius of Henry Ford, who started the Ford Motor Company literally in a garage in 1903 and in the coming years, saw the organization transformed into a veritable powerhouse of American ingenuity and success. Or, look at William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, or Beethoven or any of thousands of writers, artists and musicians who maintained a determined work ethic, continued to pursue their craft despite often incredible odds, calamities, illness and psychological difficulties.

In fact, if we care to remember what we’ve read about some of our more recent celebrities, many have also battled substance abuse of one kind or another. Still, that didn’t deter them from pursuing their goals, albeit it may have hampered them considerably, unless and until they sought to overcome their addiction.

The point is that it is perfectly natural to feel that we’ve done all we can, that there isn’t any more that we can learn or nothing more that can be gained by continuing on in the face of adversity. We are, after all, human beings. We do have powerful emotions and our thoughts may often veer toward the course that’s easier, or at least less difficult.

Do any of us really believe that life will just hand us success without our having to exert any effort? If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ll answer no. We understand that our life is very much what we make of it. If we encounter difficulties, we should strive to turn them into opportunities. And we do that by changing our outlook, by attempting to see the other side of every situation, and to look for optimal and proactive solutions to issues and problems that we encounter in recovery.

What if we think that we’ve gone as far as we can in recovery, that we’ve completed all the Twelve Steps and we can just coast from here on out? If we find ourselves falling into this way of thinking, then we’ve allowed ourselves to become lazy. Perhaps we just need a bit of a hiatus from what has been an uphill and constant battle to maintain our sobriety. Maybe we chased the goal of completion of the Twelve Steps just so we could get through them, thinking that once we did, we’d be able to live the rest of our lives without having to do anything more.

The truth is that we’re always going to be in recovery. There’s no end point here, no ultimate destination that we’re racing to achieve. Having said that, it’s important to remind ourselves that recovery isn’t a race at all, but a journey. We may as well enjoy the journey and learn how to live our life in the process.

So, when we wake up in the morning, instead of thinking of what’s on our action list for our recovery program as a duty, think of it as a gift. We are clean and sober and in recovery. That is a blessing. It also means that we’ve done a lot of hard work to get where we are today. For that, we should be not only grateful but we should also acknowledge our success.

Just don’t be content to rest on our laurels. Whatever we think we have accomplished, and likely there’s a great deal, we are each still capable of doing more, much more, in fact. And the more we do, the stronger we get and the more self-confident we become in our recovery. If what we’re attempting seems like a stretch, that’s a good thing. We are, after all, capable of so much more, if we put our minds and our backs into it.

Feel the warmth of sunshine on our faces. Even with our eyes closed, we instinctively and intuitively know that this is from the sun. The sun’s brightness also makes our days seem more positive, for we all feel more uplifted when it’s light and bright outside as opposed to dark, cloudy or stormy. Use this as a metaphor for how we approach our lives in recovery.

We always have a choice of how we’re going to look at things. There’s the positive approach, and there’s also the negative outlook. If we think that things are never going to get better, that we’re destined to always be struggling with our demons, never get ahead, never feel the serenity and peace we so long for in sobriety, guess what? We probably never will, unless and until we do something different and look at our lives as the opportunity to make a difference on the basis of exactly what we put into it.

It really isn’t all that complicated, either. So we aren’t the master of how to fend off cravings and urges right off the bat. The truth is that no one is when they first enter recovery. That only comes about with time, patience, and a lot of hard work and practice at the strategies that have proven effective for so many others before us. We need to cut ourselves some slack, to give ourselves time to get with the program, literally and figuratively. In short, we need to become immersed in the principles of recovery, actively work the steps, confer and rely upon our sponsor, and make and work toward achievable goals.

Here’s a little secret about brightness and staying positive that works for just about everyone. The more we achieve our goals, be they small ones or major ones, the stronger we become and the more self-confident, self-assured and upbeat we’re likely to feel. Success builds upon success, and every day that we are sober and learn something beneficial to our sobriety counts as another success. Each one adds to our reservoir of achievements, and none is any less important than the other.

Suppose, however, that we’re having a rough time. We may have made quite a bit of progress in our recovery journey up to this point, but now we’re in danger of a setback. This could be because of any number of things or a combination of circumstances that together seem to hit us with a wallop. We try to look on the bright side, but we just can’t seem to find anything good about what’s going on with us.

We may be tempted to give up, to go back to our old ways just to numb the pain, to blot out the confusion and fear and disappointment. While this is an understandable immediate gut reaction, it isn’t a very productive one. For one thing, our problems and issues will still be there tomorrow, perhaps exacerbated because we’ve decided to give up. We could, for example, go out and get ripped, hurt or kill someone as a result of drunk driving, get arrested and go to jail. All because we felt sorry for ourselves or figured we might as well do what we know so well: feel no pain. Imagine the problems we now face. Aren’t they substantially worse than what we felt we had to deal with before?

Not that every relapse or minor slip will always result in disaster or significant negative consequences. Our sponsor and the old-timers in the 12-step rooms will tell us that if we learn something from our misstep, then it can prove beneficial for our overall recovery. After all, recovery isn’t a linear process. Nor is it a timed event. We will be in recovery for life, so there’s no reason to believe that we can’t have another chance to get it right.

Another little secret is that the more we train ourselves to look on the bright side of things, the easier it will be for us to create proactive, positive solutions to whatever issues or challenges come our way. When we stop imagining the shadows and negative aspects of life and focus on actions we can take that can help us realize our dreams and achieve our goals, we will have accomplished something very precious. We will be in the frame of mind to appreciate life in all its fullness and promise. Even in the face of unexpected events, turmoil and difficulties, we will be better prepared to deal with them effectively.

How often have we lamented to ourselves and others that this life of recovery is just too much hard work? If we’re like many in recovery, particularly those of us just venturing into our chosen path of sobriety, we find ourselves making this comment quite frequently. After all, it is all new, even if we’ve been down this path before and slipped. Sometimes, coming back is harder than going down this road the first time.

At least, that’s what we might tell ourselves. But the truth is that nothing worth doing is ever easy. This applies just as well to the work of recovery as it does to any other endeavor we get involved in.

Think about it. If we’ve fallen into something that others may regard as valuable, but we did nothing to earn or obtain it, how often is it that we tend to dismiss it or take it for granted? An example that parents can relate to is when their children get everything they want, because the doting parents give it to them, and the children grow up to have no sense of value and the necessity of doing things for themselves to reap the resulting rewards.

In other words, what comes too cheap is not held dear, to paraphrase Thomas Paine. Of course, his words talked about conflict, but we all know that in the hard work of recovery, we often encounter our own share of conflict. If nothing else, we have all that conflict bottled up within ourselves to contend with, let alone the conflict we may have with others at any point along the way when we’re trying to do the hard work of recovery.

And, yes, recovery is certainly hard work. But it isn’t work that we should be afraid of or try to steer clear of. Indeed, as the old-timers in the 12-Step rooms are quick to tell us, we get stronger day by day and only by doing the work do we become more self-confident in our abilities and learn how to extend our capabilities in this new life of sobriety.

So, how do we begin? How can we go from newbie, fresh into recovery, uncertain, fearful, lacking confidence, not knowing where to turn and what to do first? We simply have to allow ourselves time, time to get adjusted, time to begin learning the tenets and principles of recovery, time to practice the behaviors that have proven helpful for so many others entering recovery. We also need to commit ourselves to the process, and not be too hard on ourselves for our perceived lack of progress.

Remember that we each have our own path of recovery. None of us is exactly alike and neither is the path we take in recovery. We may be similar, have characteristics or backgrounds we share with another, but we are not the same. Nevertheless, there is much to learn from others going through recovery now, whether they are newbies like us or long-timers in effective recovery.

Recovery experts recommend that we cut ourselves some slack. We aren’t going to know all there is to know right off the bat. But that doesn’t mean that we’re ignorant, either. Embrace each day as a learning opportunity and try to make some small progress toward goals that we learn to set for ourselves each day. Start with something small. Make it realistic and achievable. When we achieve our goals, acknowledge our success and congratulate ourselves for our hard work. Then, keep right on going by tackling the next step, the next item on our recovery plan. If we don’t have a next item on our to-do list, it’s time to sit down and craft some new goals, to create new action plans for achieving them.

Let’s face it. We all have fear at some point in our lives. We are, after all, human beings, and fear is an emotional response that is part of our nature. But it is also true that we have the capacity to overcome fear, to act in spite of fear, and to learn how to use fear as a motivation to strive toward achievement of our goals.

Looking back at our first few days of recovery, when we were free of drugs or alcohol for perhaps the first time in many months or years, we undoubtedly experienced a rush of fear. Sometimes it may have seemed like the cloud of fear clung to us, became a part of us, and put a big block wall in front of any hopes we may have had of maintaining our sobriety or pushing forward with our goals.

Indeed, we may have been so fearful that we had no goals. So many of us ran up against this formidable wall of fear that we felt hopeless, helpless, confused and worthless. That’s what fear does to us. It makes us feel as if we’re not worthy or deserving of happiness, that we don’t have what it takes to embrace opportunities, to face challenges, even to live in peace and serenity.

How did we ever move past fear? When we experience the shiver of fear today, what strategy do we employ to get past it? Likely as not, we’ve adopted and adapted techniques we’ve heard about in the rooms or from our sponsor. For many, this is a process of trial and error. What worked yesterday may not work today, or it may only work for minor fear and not fear of the paralyzing kind.

The key to successfully overcoming fear, however, lies not in what we do, but the fact that we do it. Once we have found an effective way to counterbalance fear and take action according to our recovery plan, we are on the right path toward defeating fear completely. Not that we will never be temporarily visited by fear, but we won’t be stopped in our tracks by it, either.

The admonition that we should face our fear in order to overcome it makes a lot of sense. Many times, if we are being honest with ourselves, what we feared most in the past didn’t turn out to be so overpowering after all. We often exaggerate the consequences of what we’re most afraid of, giving it more power than it deserves. In fact, we have all the power. We can look fear in the face, acknowledge the emotion, and then proceed with our action plan in accordance with the goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Yes, it takes practice. No, we won’t become expert at giving fear the heave-ho immediately. But we can and we will learn how to defeat it if we allow ourselves to do so and then take action. Look at it this way. We can see fear at the entrance to a garden and tremble to the point where we never walk through the gate to what’s on the other side. Or we can take a deep breath, recognize that fear is only temporary and isn’t a real barrier, and put one foot in front of the other and stride right through that gate.

When we look around, we see that fear was nothing more than a passing cloud, whisked away by the wind of our forward momentum. Overcoming fear, by the way, is courage in action. And each and every one of us is capable of challenging and surmounting any fear that seeks to waylay us and jeopardize our recovery.

In recovery, we learn a lot of things. We learn that we are capable of more than we ever anticipated, that we’re not who we once were, that our horizons can be more than we ever dreamed. But there is a caveat. We can only learn these things if we allow ourselves to grow, if we permit ourselves to explore that uncharted territory that not only lies ahead of us, but also within us.

It’s what’s inside us that makes us who we are today, that will influence who we will be tomorrow. There is no roadmap that can tell us all the myriad thoughts and desires and untapped abilities that we possess. We live in the moment, experiencing what is happening right now, today. Of course, this isn’t true for all of us. Some of us are stuck in the past, refusing to acknowledge that we’ve made progress, or even daring to presume that there could be something better for us in this life. After all, weren’t we trapped by our addiction? Isn’t that the common excuse we tell ourselves? If we keep on thinking this way, we’ll never make it very far in our recovery. While we may not slip and relapse, we’ll never know joy, either.

Think about how we deal with everyday challenges. Does it depend on our mood? Are we easily swayed by the temporary gloom or sadness we feel, thus giving ourselves an out, a reason not to go to meetings or take care of our kids or go to work? When we succumb to this emotional morass, we’re likely to start to feel sorry for ourselves. That’s certainly not good, nor is it very productive. It could be, however, if we recognize that we feel sad or a failure and decide that we’re going to get up and get going on our action plan. In other words, we acknowledge the emotion and then we get on with our life.

We all have gusts and storms that swirl around inside of us. Some of these storms can be perpetual, while others are of a momentary nature. How can we learn to navigate this uncharted territory? How can we become better prepared to deal with uncertainty, unexpected issues and problems, even challenges which could very well be opportunities in disguise? Is there any trick or strategy for doing so?

In fact, there is. It’s called working our recovery. Action will overcome stagnation. Doing the work of recovery will help to dispel lingering storms and help us to see a clear horizon. Of course, it also requires time and practice. We’re not going to become expert navigators overnight, especially if we’ve had little practice being responsible for our own actions and taking charge of our recovery.

Simple things like making it a point to discuss what’s going on with us with our sponsor, our family and loved ones, our therapist, or even our close friends can make a difference. Having a schedule that we keep each day also helps keep us focused and on track with our recovery plan. Taking the time to analyze what we’re doing well and what is effective also helps refine our plan and also gives us more motivation and momentum to tackle what’s next on our agenda. Do we have to have everything all mapped out? Of course we don’t. How could we, when our lives are being shaped according to what we’re doing today? It does help, however, to have short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals that we are working toward. As we achieve one goal, think about what we have learned, how we were able to successfully overcome temporary difficulties or set-backs in our achievement of the goal. Have we grown to the point where the realization of this goal alters our long-term goal? Maybe it’s time to revise our recovery plan to take advantage of this opportunity that we’ve encountered.

Recognize, too, that we grow even in the face of the gusts and storms. The uncharted territory within us can accommodate all kinds of weather. When we begin to feel more confident about being able to navigate whatever turmoil or serenity we feel, we’re getting stronger and more grounded in our recovery. This is a good thing. In fact, it’s a great sign that we’re making progress in our sobriety.