HOPE MONTH: DAY 1: “Optimism is informed hope. You’ve been given something, you’ve accepted it, and understood it, and then you have to pass it on”― Michael J Fox
This is the perfect description of what happens in Step 2. A bumper sticker in the 1980s read: “We Came. We Came To. We Came To Believe.” Isn’t that wonderful?
Drugs and alcohol brought us to the place where we could at least contemplate the idea that we were screwed and needed to admit defeat.
Then we began to accept that fact. Not many of us “fully concede to our innermost selves”, but some of us do. Then we are at Step 2. And we have to find hope here.
Informed hope. Great one for me! I got all this information and so-called evidence from those stories I heard around the rooms. Then I wrapped my head around how truly screwed up my life was and how it might be that I am powerless. Okay.
Now I have to am at the place where I came to believe. That takes time. Most of us can only Come to agree that we might be, may be, restored to sanity. I could certainly agree that you had been. Hope was all I had. No faith at all. That took such a terrifically long time. I sat in hope for months, maybe years. Or at least it seems that way.
The best part is the last, passing this thing on. In teaching others how to be hopeful and step out into that space and remain willing and hopeful, I got to reinforce it for myself. I am the blessed one, because I worked in recovery homes and treatment programs for over 30 years and got to see this thing up close hundreds of times every day. It was a constant conversation for me in every area of my life. That is, for me, the key to everything…passing it on…I love that!
Dolphin Hug 