Getting Involved
“How can we spice up our recovery life?”
“What can I do to have more fun in sobriety?”
“I lost all my friends, I feel lonely!”
These are things I hear over and over from people in young sobriety. It’s time for a change! Let recovery be fun!
My experience in recovery has shown, that if it comes to recovery there are generally three types of people:
1.) The ones that don’t like to be there, do meetings or classes, but accepted somehow that they have to be there to get better. You easily identify this group with as they arrive last and leave first for meetings, show unhappy facial expressions, and seldom or never share in meetings.
2.) People who love their recovery, but are either very active in their job or busy with other commitments that have a higher priority in life. They make it regularly to meetings, but do not usually get any further into recovery activities.
3.) The folks that jump head in first, volunteer where they can, chair meetings, organize barbeques or area dinners, go to classes and therapists as well, have sponsees, speak at meetings, cook for others or in other words “get involved”.
It does not take a lot of wisdom to say that those of category three usually have a higher potential to stay clean and sober. It is one thing to give recovery a priority in life, but another thing to show this in an active behavior. Getting involved connects us in a very positive way to other active recovering addicts and alcoholics. Getting to know others better may end up in beautiful sober friendships and lots of phone numbers for those low-feeling-days.
Now, those of us in recovery groups are people that usually don’t mix—people from all trades of life, all social, ethnic, religious and cultural groups. Getting involved in a fellowship or an awareness group requires us to release some borders and get along with a lot of people we normally would not associate with. Recovery is no place for arrogance or cultural biases; recovery brings us all together since we have the same disease as a common factor. Once we accept this, getting involved in any group can be a lot of fun.
Anybody new to recovery usually has lost a lot of “friends” and “acquaintances”– what we often thought our drug-buddies and bar friends were. There is no need to feel lonely or bored; recovery gives plenty of opportunity to get involved, volunteer and meet new people that favor the same new lifestyle that we all set as our new goal. Getting involved will give a wonderful sense of community and serving others in any way gives a beautiful feeling of being needed. I don’t have to have the same education or the same interests to have common goals with someone.
Often I hear from people in their first year of recovery that there is no project that they want to be involved with. It’s true that your possibilities might be limited, depending on if you live rural area or in a huge city. But we are very creative people, and recovery opens the door to new horizons. Get involved by doing something new for your sober community. Has anybody organized a hiking trip yet? Have you made a bingo evening in your sober community? Ever seen a sober beach party posted on the notice board? Or a yoga meeting? We can do art shows, inline skate afternoons, dog park gatherings– think outside the box! The possibilities are endless and we can organize anything that gives us fun. There are always other people that have the same interests and would love to participate.
Most events like this can be done on no budget or a very small one. If a small monetary start-up investment is needed (for example bingo cards), ask in your home group if that could be a project financed through donations or something that may held at the group’s meeting place to empower community.
Heroes in Recovery is organizing 6K run/walk events all over the country. We like to encourage people to get involved, get active and live a healthy, active lifestyle in recovery. Get a group together and attend the next Heroes run near your home town. Maybe the group needs a little training first. You can meet 2-3 times a week to get in shape for it and have a wonderful team. See if one has some running experience and like to be the trainer.
Conventions and conferences are excellent venues to get involved. Not only that it is fun for ourselves to be around all those lovely people in sobriety, but we can also take the wisdom and knowledge back home with us and share it with other people in our home group.
We just had a beautiful “moon dance” at a friend’s farm. About 100 people in recovery came together on a full moon night to have a bonfire, share a potluck, have life music and spend an evening full of laughter and hugs. A lot of people got involved in preparing this event and everybody in recovery could attend. It was mainly a fun event, but I was approached several times by new people asking for some explanation of steps and general questions about recovery. There are many which don’t have a sponsor yet and they can find their match easily on those occasions.
Always keep in mind that most organizations in recovery are run by volunteers. Without involved people in recovery there would be absolutely nothing and no place to go. Let us make our life more interesting and get more people to participate. Getting involved also helps to break the stigma associated with addiction. If we show our local community that we do not hide in our homes, but are outgoing, active people living in sobriety, we can help make the way easier for generations to follow. Breaking the stigma involves the public view of us addicts and alcoholics. People should think about that friendly nice and sober fun-having group they met in the park and not about an addict that they saw in TV dying on an overdose when they think about addiction recovery.
Get involved in your local community of recovery today and be a more active member. Are you already very active? Please share with us right here at “join the discussion” and tell us about things you do in your community or what events you helped organize. Please let us get some ideas together for those who are going to pay forward now with their time and effort.
You can also get involved by sharing your story of recovery here on our website. A quick click on the top right at “share your story” is all it takes to get started. Let us know what you do in recovery and what makes your life special today. Please share right here, we need to learn from each other.
“I don’t want to be a princess who sits on the sidelines; I want to be present and actively involved. It’s a life with a purpose.” -Charlene, Princess of Monaco
Susanne Johnson