If you’ve made a decision to get clean and have found 12 step meetings to attend you might have heard the statement stick to the basics.  This is the very best advice I could offer anyone who wants to get and stay clean.

What are the basics?  Well in recovery there are no rules but there are a few suggestions that I was strongly advised to take if I wanted to stay clean.  These are:

A) Get a sponsor

B) Find a home group

C) Work the steps with that sponsor

D) Build a support group among people who have sobriety

E) Read the literature of whatever 12 step recovery group you choose to go to.

F) Take a service commitment (coffee maker, greater, etc…)

I needed to build a strong foundation on which to build a sober clean life so I did them all.

Each of these things is so important to my sobriety and has always been.  Finding a sponsor to guide me along the path to a clean life was important because I had no idea what I was doing.  She worked the steps with me and showed me what she had done to stay clean.  She also shared her experiences with me which showed me I wasn’t alone and that other people had done the same things I did and sometimes worse.  I built a trust with her that I hadn’t had with anyone in a very long time.  She also gave me different perspectives on events in my life that I could only see through my tunnel vision, that everything wasn’t everyone else’s fault.  She showed me how I was responsible for my life, this allowed me to not be a victim anymore.  I could take control of my life and with God’s help more toward a better clean life.

Finding a home group, joining it and taking on a commitment allowed me to become a “part of”.  It gave me the opportunity to take an active role in my recovery and made me accountable to others every week.  If I wasn’t there people would call to find out why.  Accountability is huge in my life.  It also taught me to be responsible and to show up every week as I said I would.  It was my first acts of responsibility in years and years.  It helped me to start growing up and becoming a woman of my word.  If I said I would be there every week to greet or make coffee I was there every single week.

Reading the literature for the 12 step recovery fellowship I became a part of helped me to understand many many things … first and foremost that I was a sick person not a bad one and how to get and stay clean.  Our literature is very simple but requires willingness to learn about who and what we are and what I can do to recover.  It’s my text book on how to get clean.  I stay in the literature and try to remain teachable always.

If I stick to the basics always I never have to go back to them … It works IF you work it.

Picture By kelsey_lovefusionphoto