Recently, I was challenged to write a gratitude list of 10 things that I am grateful for in my recovery. Among the items I listed was the word “HOPE.” It was the only word on my list that I had written in all caps. When I finished the list—which also included “being present,” “learning true intimacy,” and “my recovery community”—I reflected on each item, but came back to the four upper-cased letters and paused.

As I pondered the word “hope,” I remembered that I didn’t have hope while I was acting out. I recalled driving off with a man I had just met. He asked me, “How do you know you’re not leaving with a serial killer?” To which I replied without emotion, “How do you know you’re not leaving with a serial killer?” He replied “Fair enough,” and drove on.

I did not care whether I ever returned that night. I did not care whether he was a serial killer, or a rapist, or a child molester; or if he was a gang member, abusive, or involved in human trafficking. I had no hope for myself or my future. I willingly and carelessly left with him as my two young children slept unknowingly a few feet from his truck, entrusted to the care of my “friend” who was just as stoned as I was.

To think back on that night stirs a world of emotions inside me, emotions that I now acknowledge, feel, and process through the Twelve Steps of SA. I am powerless over my past. I cannot change it. No matter how bad it was, I am seeing that my experience can help others. My whole attitude and outlook on life has changed as I have started making conscious contact with God on a daily, sometimes minute-by-minute, basis. I am living in a freedom and happiness I’ve never known before through surrendering my will and life each morning to my Higher Power.

There is my HOPE. It was not there before, but now I want to live. I want to protect myself and my children. I care about others. If that’s not hope, I don’t know what is. God is doing for me what I could not do for myself. Today I am willing to step out of the way and let Him continue doing that for me.

Hope & Joy,