Remain Teachable in Recovery

At Crossroads Recovery Centers we provide comprehensive treatment for addiction to alcohol and other drugs.  We encourage our clients to remain teachable and open throughout  their recovery.  The question to ask yourself is “how teachable am I?" This is such as simple question, yet it is very difficult to comprehend or to live by.  To be able to see opportunities everywhere we have to remain teachable to life's lessons.  However, these lessons come second by second and may come in the most hidden fashion, but if you train your mind to direct its attention to learning from every moment you will be able to see a new world around you full of  opportunities.  There will be so many opportunities in your life, that life experiences as you know it, will be your greatest resource. Every experience is teaching something,  but  you have to train yourself to look for the meaning. There will be information and situations that will be presented more than once, and you have to ask yourself, “how does this apply to me?” I have learned that no event, as similar as it may seem, is the same.  My Mentor once said, "the mother of recovery intelligence  is repetition, repetition, repetition, and more repetition, until we get it right."

This reminds me of an event in my life.  I was asked by my sister to take care of my nephew, Junior.  My sister went against her maternal instinct to protect her son because she knew I was not qualified to take care of a four year old boy, nonetheless, she left him with me.   I saw this day as a chance to complete some reading for my history class. I thought “hey I’ve done this before, it will be easy.”  I remember my nephew telling me “it is time for my bath uncle.” I naively said, “Okay take a shower.” He then replied, “You have to fix me the water.”  Once again naively I said, “Okay its done, take a shower.”  My nephew replied, “I can’t be alone, my mom never leaves me alone.”  At this point I saw this event as a burden on my studies and wanted him to finish his bath.  My nephew then began to take a shower and decided he wanted a bubble bath, so I fixed him a bubble bath.  He began to play with the bubbles and the shampoo and conditioner bottles.  At first I ignored what he was doing but found myself fascinated by how much fun he was having with water and conditioner and shampoo bottles.  At that moment I realized that I was not taking care of him, but he was taking care of me.  I realized that he was taking care of my imagination, which I had lost during my education process.  This little four year old boy was my teacher and I was his student.  At that moment I realized that this child had a lot of wisdom to give because what he knew was not intellectual... he was living it.  My teacher was giving me a  lesson  of how the only limits we place, are the ones self imposed by our knowledge of what we can and can’t do with what we have.  My teacher helped me realize that I had lost one of my biggest assets: my imagination and making the best of what is in front of me because I’ve experienced it before.  He created a play land out of water, a shower, and bottles.  He was traveling in space in his rocket ships.  I watched with amazement how he did not worry about what he didn’t have, needed, had little of, or what he was lacking.  He was free and truly happy with what he had.  Since that day I admire little children because they are full of wisdom.  Wisdom is not measured by years or life experience, but by the application of knowledge we have.   Wisdom is doing ...and knowledge is knowing what to do.    I am lucky to have experienced that event, I encourage you to make every irrelevant moment of your recovery a learning moment. You will grow, connect with others, reconnect with yourself, and to move toward what you want.  -Edgar A. Villa, LCSW, CATC IV