" We felt different... Only after surrender are we able to overcome the alienation of addiction."

" But you don’t understand!" we spluttered, trying to cover up. "I’m different! I’ve really got it rough!" We used these lines over and over in our active addiction, either trying to escape the consequences of our actions or avoid following the rules that applied to everyone else. We may have cried them at our first meeting. Perhaps we’ve even caught ourselves whining them recently.

So many of us feel different or unique. As addicts, we can use almost anything to alienate ourselves. But there’s no excuse for missing out on recovery, nothing that can make us ineligible for the program–not a life-threatening illness, not poverty, not anything. There are thousands of addicts who have found recovery despite the real hardships they’ve faced. Through working the program, their spiritual awareness has grown, in spite of–or perhaps in response to–those hardships.

Our individual circumstances and differences are irrelevant when it comes to recovery. By letting go of our uniqueness and surrendering to this simple way of life, we’re bound to find that we feel a part of something. And feeling a part of something gives us the strength to walk through life, hardships and all.

Just for today: I will let go of my uniqueness and embrace the principles of recovery I have in common with so many others. My hardships do not exclude me from recovery; rather, they draw me into it.