A few weeks ago, I asked each of the 96 men who attended that week’s Freedom Groups to name a daily routine that helped with their recovery. One man said what no one else was thinking. “I floss.” Really? What does flossing one’s teeth have to do with recovery? This man explained, referring to a…
Recently, during one of my Freedom Group sessions, a participant said something that has really stuck with me. It was truly profound: “As we grow in our recovery, our standard of sobriety gets higher.” Let that sink in. As we become stronger in our recovery work and take new ground, something else happens. What we…
“Help, I need somebody. Not just anybody.” – The Beatles, 1965 We all need help. And we all need somebody. But we also need to be the somebody whom somebody else needs. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it well: “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable,…
“Elementary, my dear Watson.” – The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1929 Elementary is not a bad thing. Every success story has a small beginning. Every athlete, astronaut, doctor, engineer, and Recovery Minute writer had to start someplace. Every scholar graduated from elementary school well before he earned advanced degrees. Recovery works the same way. Start…
In early dramas, a single actor would often play multiple parts, so he would have to put on a different mask to represent each role that he played. Many of us do the same thing. We wear one mask for our friends, another for our family, and one at church. We even wear a mask…
Sobriety is not your goal. At least, it shouldn’t be. Your goal should not be abstinence – from unwanted sexual behavior or any other sin. So what is the goal? In a word, transformation. We are commanded to “be transformed” (Romans 12:2). We must be “born again” (John 3:7). Every man in Christ is a…
Everyone loves a good comeback story. And I can think of no better example of a comeback than that of Mark, in the New Testament. I’m biased toward Mark for two reasons: (a) my parents named me after him (erroneously thinking he was one of the twelve apostles), and (b) his is a comeback story.…
In our addiction, we get everything backwards. Randy Alcorn writes, “God created us to love people and use things, but materialists love things and use people.” Every addict I know has done the same thing. We use things – and people – to address every pleasure. If someone gets hurt in the process, well, that’s…
Guess who created the Rubik’s Cube? Here’s a better question. How long did it take Erno Rubik to solve the cube after he created it? Answer: one month. The current world record is 4.22 seconds. Here’s what happened. Erno Rubik invented the famous cube, but it took someone else to learn how to solve it…
Hunger. It is one of the most overlooked aspects of recovery. To stay sober, you must stay hungry. And that is not always easy. That’s because the thing that got you into recovery may no longer be a force in your sobriety. The discovery, disease, or disaster may have long since passed. The urgency has…