Overheard in Recovery: Re-engineering

An optimist sees the glass as half-full
A pessimist sees the glass as half-empty
An engineer wants to re-engineer the glass.

Which is what recovery is all about. Optimism has its place, of course. It is the source of hope. But in recovery we discover that our lives are no longer able to hold the hope thanks to the addiction that has been hijacking our brains and flooding our neurotransmitters with false chemicals and signals.

So the only thing that we have to change - is everything.

In order to do that we have to work at re-engineering, rewiring the brain through new ways of thinking and acting. We turn our lives over to the care of a higher power- someone that can guide us when the old ways come back.

Then the longer we work at it, the better we get, the more the shape of the glass of our lives fits the new way of living- sobriety.