Running a marathon is a good analogy for what recovery has been. In this pandemic, however, recovery can feel like running a three-legged race, tied too often to a lame companion – habits, hang-ups and hurts that hobble my progress! Some of us can’t believe going anyway, much less a running a race, without inviting booze and mental and emotional baggage to run with us.
Clare Pooley, author of Sober Mommy, wrote:
I get so many messages from people telling me they’ve tried and ‘failed’ to quit drinking. I get it. I had more ‘failed’ attempts myself than I can even remember before my final Day One. Now I see that these weren’t ‘failures’, they were warm-ups! After all, you wouldn’t try to run a marathon without giving your mind a body a few practice runs first, would you?
So, if you’re feeling like a failure, just pick yourself up, limber up and get going again. You’re one warm-up closer to success!
Today is about trying again – for all of us – no matter how many years or days of sobriety we have.
Someone smarter than I said,
“You haven’t failed until you stop trying.”
- Breaking up with alcohol is very trying . . . it is hard.
- Resisting default responses can be as trying, just as demanding.
Recovery, like running a marathon is hard, but it enables us to go places we never dreamed we’d even see . . . like sanity. You and dear reader are SO worth the effort!
Love in Christ,
Sober and Grateful

