Recovery is not linear. Recovery does not have a finish line. Recovery is swirl of steps forward, setbacks, and slip-ups.

In my experience, recovery is like a mountain road: curvy, unpredictable, sometimes foggy, and occasionally wrought with hard-to-navigate paths and wrong turns.

But unlike a mountain, there is no peak to strive for, but instead instances where the road flattens, visibility spans for miles, and stability seems attainable.

My recovery began in 2010, and in these past 10 years I’ve learned an incredible deal about myself and my thoughts: where they (possibly) originated, where they have led me, and how I can learn to take control of them to lead myself where I want to go.

In the process, I’ve met some extraordinary human beings who are also working their way through their own recovery. I’ve found that people in recovery are some of the most compassionate, empathetic, and good-natured people I’ve ever met. And I find it fascinating that while we’re ostensibly kind to each other, we have no qualms about scolding and assaulting ourselves in private.

Therein lies the crux of recovery: a series of contradictions in a terribly secretive disease; a desire to get better battling a forceful pull backward to stay where we’ve built a comfortable world of routine; a tug-of-war between what our bodies are telling us we need to do to survive and maintain homeostasis vs. our minds trying to convince us that staying sick is the only way to keep control and get what we crave.

But in recovery, the former of these two voices slowly grows louder than the other while starting to resemble our own voice. It takes practice, almost minute to minute, over days, months, years, but when we’re able to shut down the demonic taunting that’s holding us back and holding us down, we’re able to see the light that is recovery.