If I Like Being Sober

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. Joshua 22:5

Working with patients in addiction medicine, I ask about recovery activities at almost every visit. Are you going to meetings? Are you doing your daily readings, meditation, or prayer? What are you doing to work on recovery? Early on in recovery, I’ll often hear about four meetings a week, meeting with a sponsor, and working the 12 steps. After a few weeks though, at maybe the second or third visit, they’ve stopped pursuing recovery because it appears that it just doesn’t require much work anymore. Whatever crisis caused them to seek sobriety has passed, life has returned to normal, and their desperate motivation to change has cooled. So, they’ve taken their foot off the proverbial gas. I know this is dangerous, so I’ll ask, Do you like being sober? If so, remember what got you here.

I get it. I’ve been there. Desperate times have called for desperate measures, but when my crisis has passed, life went back to normal and so did my behavior. When nothing changes though, nothing changes. Going back to my way of doing things has inevitably led back to relapse. I used to hate the idea that I’d have to work on my faith and recovery for the rest of my life. Eventually though, I got sick enough of relapsing, that I became willing to do whatever it took to remain in recovery. I realized I liked being sober and so, I accepted that I must daily work at abandoning my way for God’s.

This is the message of today’s passage. In it, the Israelites had conquered the promised land and so, Joshua sent them to their new homes to rest. They’d obeyed God and had been rewarded with the life he desired for them. Joshua sent them off with a warning though. Go. Rest. Enjoy life. But don’t forget what got you here. You must continue to follow God (my paraphrase). Joshua knew that in their rest, they’d be prone to drift away from God, and so he implored them, If you like your new life, remember what got you here.

When I stop working on my faith and recovery, I drift back towards the old life. I don’t necessarily have to go to four meetings a week for the rest of my life, but if I like sobriety, I must daily do whatever it takes to follow God’s will instead of my own.