Recovery Road

First Year Sobriety: When All that Changes is Everything, Guy Kettelhack draws on the voices of women and men who are navigating the unknown territory of their first year of sobriety. This excerpt includes the personal accounts of Marcia and George, two people in recovery who still find themselves occasionally overwhelmed with rage.

In her book A Woman's Guide to Recovery, Brenda Iliff gives expert advice, caring support, and personal stories of women who have found their way out of the mess of addiction and into new lives marked by healing and recovery. This excerpt discusses the paradox of the First Step, exploring how we can find true power through admitting our powerlessness.

In her book Mindfulness and the 12 Steps, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart offers support for recovery, drawing on her personal experience and a wide range of knowledge in psychology and spirituality. In this excerpt, she points out that "we" is the first word of the Twelve Steps and makes a case for the importance of connection and community as spiritual resources for healthy recovery.

In this excerpt from his book, Step Up: Unpacking Steps One, Two, and Three with Someone Who's Been There, bestselling author and sober alcoholic Michael Graubart explores the word unmanageability as it appears in Step One, and how our impulse to control everyone and everything is at the heart of our struggle with alcoholism and other addictions.

In this excerpt from the revised edition of his classic book A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Patrick Carnes offers practical advice for revitalizing a recovery that may feel stalled or stuck and reminds us that the gifts of recovery are always meant to be shared.

Now That You're Sober: Week by Week Guidance from Your Recovery Coach, Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty offer practical advice and wise inspiration for the recovery journey. In this excerpt, we hear personal insight from James, an AA member who has had a tough go at life but now helps others hear and embrace the message and the miracle of recovery.

In his book Second Year Sobriety: Getting Comfortable Now That Everything Is Different, Guy Kettelhack explores growth and the challenges we often face in our second year of recovery. In this excerpt, we hear a personal story from Jack, a member of AA who is learning what acts of service can look like in recovery.

In his book Twelve Step Sponsorship: How It Works, author and sponsor Hamilton B. writes for both sponsors and sponsees about this important part of the program. In this excerpt he highlights the relational power that undergirds Twelve Step recovery and is the focus of Step Twelve: we find recovery with the help of others, and then we get to pay it forward.

In her book A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Stephanie Covington guides readers through the Twelve Step journey through the lens of women's perspective. In this excerpt, we learn what a spiritual awakening is and how it applies to us as we take the Twelfth Step.

In her book, Find Your Light: Practicing Mindfulness to Recover from Anything, Beverly Conyers shows us how the practice of mindfulness, which includes deep acceptance of the present moment, can be a daily part of recovery and a path to a happier life.

In her book Fearless Relationships: Simple Rules for Lifelong Contentment, Karen Casey offers a guide for living with more serenity and creating a world that will nurture us and our relationships. In this excerpt, Casey discusses how she starts her day with God. We see how doing this helps her have a positive attitude for the day ahead.

In his book Practicing the Here and Now, Herb K. offers a framework for understanding and accessing the powerful gifts of prayer and meditation found in the Twelve Step journey of recovery. In this excerpt, Herb describes the practice of meditation, defining it as an intentional process that allows us to receive guidance that both informs and transforms our lives and relationships.

In her book Mindfulness and the 12 Steps, Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart offers support for recovery, drawing on her personal experience and an impressive range of knowledge in psychology, spirituality, and the Twelve Steps. In this excerpt, we hear the author's own story of working with a spiritual advisor and how the invitation to prayer and meditation at the heart of Step Eleven helped her face a life-changing choice.

In Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA, recovering alcoholic A.J. Adams shares insights and wisdom from his own story of skeptic spirituality, and the gifts of acceptance and willingness that he found along the path of recovery. In this excerpt, the author shares his two-step method for working Step Ten in the moments when it's most needed.

In their book Rein in Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery, Cynthia Moreno Tuohy and Victoria Costello offer brain training techniques for breaking the cycle of compulsive thoughts and behaviors. In this excerpt, we are given a real-life scenario that shows how not communicating feelings can affect our relationships and daily life.

In his book, Drop the Rock: The Ripple Effect, Fred H. helps us explore Step Ten, and how the habits and practices that we build in a program of recovery create positive effects in us that ripple outward into our relationships and beyond. This excerpt discusses the importance of paying attention to our feelings as we practice Step Ten.

For decades, the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living has helped millions of people understand and apply the Twelve Steps to their lives and find an authentic path to recovery. In this excerpt, the authors offer Step Ten as a pattern for growing into the promises Alcoholics Anonymous makes about how we will feel and what we will experience in recovery.

In Finding your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, Craig Nakken offers forty-one universal principles, paired as positive and negative counterparts, that guide behavior. In this excerpt, we see the emotional toll of holding on to resentment compared with allowing ourselves to forgive.

In his book Twelve Step Sponsorship: How It Works, author and sponsor Hamilton B. writes for both sponsors and sponsees, helping people at any stage of recovery understand and apply the guidance of the Twelve Steps and make the most of the sponsor relationship. In this excerpt, he explores the hard but rewarding practice of face-to-face relationship repair that is the focus of the Ninth Step, "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."

In A Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Patrick Carnes offers the Steps as a pattern of practices and habits that make lasting recovery possible. We can use these principles as a guide to a new way of living--letting go of our old ways of thinking and acting and accepting that change in our lives is both ongoing and inevitable.

Our addictions kept us isolated from others--even the people we hurt. They also often made us strangers to ourselves. Those of us who also live with a mental disorder can have a hard time figuring out which of our diseases has done the most harm, and how we can possibly start healing our relationships as well as ourselves. This can make the direct amends of Step Nine feel almost impossible.

We probably started to learn about being "responsible" at a young age. Our guardians, teachers, and employers may have used the word numerous times, reminding us to hold ourselves accountable. But what does responsibility look like now that we're in recovery? Craig Nakken can help. In his book The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior, Nakken helps people understand the process of addiction as well as the progressive nature of the disease and how to be healthy and happy and sober. We can use Nakken's insights&--including those having to do with the value of responsibility--to keep building a successful recovery.

In her book When Reality Bites: How Denial Helps and What to Do When it Hurts, Holly Parker provides exercises and personal stories that can help us understand and accept the positive uses of denial and learn to move past it when it becomes counterproductive. This excerpt introduces five different ways people tend to point the finger and avoid responsibility in relationships.

In her book The Next Happy, Tracey Cleantis offers a roadmap for letting go of a dream that isn't working and teaches us how to set realistic goals for finding a new way forward. This excerpt describes how envy, guilt, and shame—what Cleantis calls the "Trio of unwelcome feelings"—can get in the way of our progress. We don't have to let these emotions rule our lives.

For decades, the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living has helped millions of people understand and apply the Twelve Steps to their lives and find an authentic path to recovery. In this excerpt, the authors describe the Program as a process of finding harmony with the activity and will of a Higher Power, which includes the work of setting things right with the people we've harmed.

In their book What Went Right, Dr. Michael G. Wetter and Eileen Baley introduce easy-to-understand principles and techniques for recognizing and intervening against self-defeating thought processes and improving self-esteem. This excerpt includes tips for avoiding personalization and blame—two unhealthy responses to feelings of guilt.

In her book The Recovering Body: Physical and Spiritual Fitness for Living Clean and Sober, Jennifer Matesa offers a guide to achieving physical recovery as part of our path to lifelong sobriety. This excerpt offers tips for meditation and can encourage us to create a healthy new habit.

In his book Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA, A. J. Adams describes how joining Alcoholics Anonymous changed his preconceptions about recovery and what could work for him. In this excerpt, Adams describes what the program taught him about real humility as well as the type of action that produces change on the road to recovery.

In her book A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Stephanie Covington guides readers along the Twelve Step journey through the lens of women's perspective. In this excerpt, we learn how Step Seven can help us stay conscious and aware of our actions. Most of all, it lets us ask for help letting go of the results.

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, Craig Nakken outlines forty-one basic principles, paired as positive and negative counterparts, that guide our behavior. This excerpt explores the way arrogance can be tempered by self-awareness and honest humility.

In her book Fearless Relationships: Simple Rules for Lifelong Contentment, Karen Casey offers insightful advice on how to heal ourselves and mend our relationships. In this excerpt, Casey explains how improving our relationships involves and includes improving ourselves as well. Growth means accepting responsibility for how we—and our relationships—evolve.

For decades, the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living has helped millions of people understand and apply the Twelve Steps to their lives and find an authentic path to recovery. In this excerpt, the authors ask us to be honest about our "willingness" when it comes to recovery and challenge us to let go of the defects of character that can keep us stuck in old patterns and afraid of the future.

In her book A Woman's Way Through the Twelve Steps, Dr. Stephanie Covington guides readers through the Twelve Step journey through the lens of women's perspective—including her own recovery story. In this excerpt, Covington notes that seeing our patterns doesn't make them change. To do that we need to learn how to let them go.

In his book Twelve Step Sponsorship: How It Works, author and sponsor Hamilton B. writes for both sponsors and sponsees about how to work the Steps together. In this excerpt he explores the heart of Step Six: whether we're ready to have our Higher Power take away the defects of character that we identified in Step Four and that we admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being in Step Five.

In their book, Drop the Rock: Removing Character Defects Bill P and Todd W study Steps Six and Seven. This excerpt focuses on Step Six, in which we "became willing to ask God to help us remove our defects of character."

A pair of short meditations selected from late May entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: A Life of My Own and Today I Will Do One Thing. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to seek and find emotional support for our recovery.

In her book Conscious Service: Ten Ways to Reclaim Your Calling, Move beyond Burnout, and Make a Difference without Sacrificing Yourself, Elizabeth Bishop offers practical tools for self-connection and self-care. In this excerpt, she describes how to build supportive relationships before we need them. Tapping the insights and support of "Safe Sounding Boards" can help us navigate difficult situations without losing our cool or threatening our recovery.

A pair of short meditations selected from late May entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: A Day at a Time and If You Leave Me, Can I Come with You? Today's Meditation Monday selections challenge us to reach out when we need help and stay honest about reality in what we say and do.

In his book Passages Through Recovery: An Action Plan for Preventing Relapse, Terence Gorski describes six stages of challenge we face in moving from active addiction to sobriety. This excerpt offers a seven-step method for managing stress and solving problems during the stabilization stage of recovery.

A pair of short meditations selected from mid-May entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's classic meditation series of books: Day by Day and Twenty-Four Hours a Day. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to cultivate patience, learn to avoid overreacting, and share the load with others.

In their book Rein in Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery, Cynthia Moreno Tuohy and Victoria Costello offer techniques for breaking the cycle of compulsive thoughts and behaviors. In this excerpt, the authors discuss "self-fulfilling prophecies"—how the pain we experience in relationships can lead us to repeat old patterns—and offer strategies for change.

A pair of short meditations selected from early May entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: Easy Does It and Answers in the Heart. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to enter and enjoy this day of recovery with creativity, love, and action.

In her book Conscious Service: Ten Ways to Reclaim Your Calling, Move beyond Burnout, and Make a Difference without Sacrificing Yourself, Elizabeth Bishop offers practical tools for self-connection and self-care. In this excerpt, she challenges us to explore and celebrate what makes each of us great—and she's not interested in lies, or bragging, or puffed-up half-truths. Claiming our greatness is all about honesty.

Two short meditations selected from early May entries in three of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: A Woman's Spirit and Walk in Dry Places. Today's Meditation Monday selections are gathered around the theme of conquering our fears and anxieties.

In her book The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward, Tracey Cleantis offers practical advice on how to heal from our losses and let go of the things and relationships that no longer work for us. In this excerpt, the author shares her personal experience of balancing real grief and authentic positivity.

A pair of short meditations selected from late-April entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: Walk in Dry Places and A Life of My Own. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to remember the past without sinking into regret, and practice releasing our impulses to control the present and future.

In their book Living the Twelve Traditions in Today's World: Principles Before Personalities, Mel B. and Michael Fitzpatrick examine the history of each AA principle and how they remain relevant to recovery programs today. This excerpt explores the Sixth Tradition: An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.

A pair of short meditations selected from mid-April entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: In God's Care and Answers in the Heart. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us regard ourselves with compassion and treat the people around us with love and care.

In her book When Misery is Company, Anne Katherine helps those of us who feel comfortable in our misery find a new path toward happiness. This excerpt reviews some common self-sabotaging patterns and offers ways we can be more mindful in our activities and begin to enjoy life more.

A pair of short meditations selected from mid-April entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: The Promise of a New Day and Each Day a New Beginning. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to us to accept the seasons of changes in our lives and find growth beyond our comfort zones.

Bestselling Author Melody Beattie's The Grief Club blends healing wisdom and pragmatic guidance to help us face life's most difficult moments and do the work that allows us to move ahead. In this excerpt, Beattie describes the importance of claiming our own space for grief, and the challenge of detaching from feelings, behaviors, and people who aren't—and never will be—our responsibility.