Meditation reading for Friday October 27, 2023
DIMINISHING RETURNS ARE STILL BENEFICIAL —
There’s a “pink cloud” effect that some of us had when we first found sobriety. Some call it the honeymoon stage. It includes a feeling of great joy and relief over having found, at last, an answer to drinking.
This gradually fades away, as it should under normal conditions. We then feel as though we’re in stages of diminishing returns, where the benefits don’t seem as miraculous, and other improvements in our lives seem to come slowly.
The experience we have in getting sober is like that of people who recovery from a terrible physical illness. At first, they feel remarkably better for the first time. But then their recovery becomes taken for granted, and “feeling better” isn’t as remarkable as it was when they first recovered.
We should not expect it to be. Instead, we can focus on the contentment and well-being that living sober and steady improvement give us.
I may not have anything today like the excitement that accompanied early recovery. I’ll be satisfied with the normal blessings of good living.