You deserve more but I hope these words are a good start...

Hero.

We love our heroes.  We love giving them medals and holding ceremonies in their honor.  We love watching movies about their lives, and having our children idolize them.  It’s why we give our soldiers their own holiday and lend our support to the police and fire department.  We even stretch the definition of hero to include teachers, doctors and philanthropists.   We don’t however include recovering addicts in the conversation of heroism.

But we should.

Right now as you read these words, thousands upon thousands of lives are being saved.  And these same lives will be saved later tonight and again tomorrow morning.  In fact, every second of every day for the rest of each of their lives they will be in grave danger and will be saved by recovering addicts.

What many fail to realize is that there comes a point when drug and alcohol use ceases to be a choice and becomes a reflex.  The urge to get that feeling of being high or drunk consumes a person to his very core.  Money and personal relationships are used and manipulated to acquire more drugs and alcohol.  It will continue to consume until that person has lost his job, his family and eventually his life.

People say that addiction is a disease, but that definition needs to be more specific.  Addiction is like having cancer – even if you manage to beat it, there’s always a chance of it coming back.  And like cancer, there is no cure for addiction; you just fight daily to keep it in remission.  You can no longer just have one drink or one hit because one small taste can send you spiraling back down into the abyss.  Sadly, that urge can be stronger than any other desire, but you have to abstain completely.

And that’s where the beauty comes in.

To stand at the edge of darkness and resist every temptation to jump requires an extraordinary amount of self-control.  Escaping from the depths of hell, and living a life full of optimism is an incredible feat.  But to then turn around and dedicate your life to help someone else conquer his or her demons, is the purest form of salvation that one can have.  Addicts will never get their own holiday or the accolades of the aforementioned.  But its not about pride and praise that keeps the doors open at your local NA or AA meeting, its simply keeping yourself and someone else off that edge.  I’m sure the next time you think about a hero, you won’t think about a recovering addict.

But you should.