Success in Sobriety

In the real world success is often measured by such things as jobs, income, education or the neighborhood one lives  in.

But at TLC, though, our idea of success is different.  Our primary measure of success is if one is living sober.

And tonight one of our client demonstrated success when he described a series of setbacks that would have normally gotten him drunk before he came into the program.

But even though he’d experienced loss of his job and living quarters and hadn’t gotten high, he was still down on himself because he wasn’t being “an example.”

As the group went on though he began to realize that the idea of not drinking or drugging in the face of setbacks is a definition of “success” in the world of recovery at TLC.  And it’s the kind of example that counts to other clients struggling with recovery.

Our experience over the years has been that if one simply deals with the disease that brought them to the program – the measures of success valued by the larger community will also show up.