Celebrating recovery...

Evidently, September is National Recovery Month – I didn’t know that. And next week is Children of Alcoholics Week. I didn’t know that either. Sounds good, although I’m not sure I’d want to celebrate being the child of an alcoholic.

Recovery month is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. It was created in October 1992 by a Congressional mandate to provide national leadership in the Federal government’s effort to improve the lives of individuals and their families affected by alcohol and drug abuse. At least that’s what it says in the “About Recovery Month” section of their website.

I know this agency has been around for a long time and so I think maybe they need a better public relations firm because I had never heard of them until now.  But then, who am I – I can’t know everything all the time.

When their representative contacted me and asked me to submit my story to the website, my first thought was – why?  I’m not an alcoholic and the person living with me that is an alcoholic is not in recovery. Granted, he has been in recovery many times – but to say he is in recovery now is just a matter of your own point of view. He’s in recovery by default – does that count?

So I called the representative and asked her – why me? Her response was that my story is about my own recovery within an alcoholic world. I asked questions about the organization and in the end I wrote and submitted the story.  You can read what I wrote by going to http://www.recoverymonth.gov/Voices-for-Recovery/Stories.aspx.

The truth is I don’t feel as though I’ve recovered from anything. I only feel that I am surviving an unfortunate circumstance. If, in the process of my own survival, I can help anyone else survive – I’m all down for that.