A longtime acquaintance of mine, who is in recovery, manages a low-rent hotel where many of the residents are practicing alcoholics and addicts. The police frequently visit to deal with drunken residents. Or they'll serve a warrant on someone for drug-related offenses. Once or twice a year a resident dies from drug or alcohol related causes.

"Doesn't this interfere with your sobriety?" I once asked the manager.

"Not really," he responded. "It actually helps me stay sober when I see all the problems these residents have over drinking and drugging."

He went on to explain to me that it's more than just the drug overdoses or arrests that have an effect on him. He explained that he sees all of the other problems that alcoholics and addicts have in their lives. Many of them have financial issues. Others have health problems that are related to drug and alcohol use. It seems like they are regularly having relationship or family issues.

"Working here actually helps me with my own sobriety," he told me. He went on to explain that nearly everything he has read in the literature plays out at his place of work.

This man's story illustrates that if we're working a good recovery program it doesn't matter where we work or who's around us. If we are well grounded and are working the steps, then we have the tools to stay sober.

The blessings of recovery can be found in many things. Of course there are the obvious blessings such as enjoying good health, or having our families back, or no longer being entangled in legal problems. But I also find blessings in little things.

For example, for fifteen years I've driven the same route to my office. About half way there, at a fairly busy intersection, there's a three acre plot that hasn't succumbed to the encroachments of the city. It is surrounded by housing projects, apartment buildings, and small businesses.

For some reason the owner of the property has never sold out to developers who might prize such a key location. Instead he operates a small farm on the site, where each year he grows at least two crops of corn. On my short commute I can watch the year-round progress of the crops. Part of the year the field is covered with stubble. At other times a tractor will be passing back and forth as the land is being readied for the next crop. Sometimes a worker with a shovel will be at the irrigation ditch at the edge of the field making sure water is released into each furrow. Then for several weeks there will be a dark green field of six feet tall cornstalks. Later signs will appear reading, "Ear Corn For Sale."

For some reason I find this cycle of preparation, growth, and harvest refreshing. Not only is the field of thing of beauty but for that moment I can slow down and enjoy the farm a mile from the city center. I can admire the patience that goes into producing and harvesting the corn crop.

At one time I used to wonder about the farmer's motives. Was he holding the land until he could get a higher price? Was there some tax benefit for using the property as a farm? Today I realize that none of that is important.

What's important is for me to enjoy this small farm in the middle of the city.

I was pulling my car into a parking place in front of a Walgreen's store last Thursday evening in Las Vegas, when I saw a man approaching my car out of the corner of my eye. His gait was unsteady, his clothes were sweat stained and dirty. When I opened my door and stepped out he approached me with his hand extended.

"I'm hungry," he said. "Can you help me get something to eat?"

Since I normally give something to those who approach me for help I reached in my pocket and took out my wallet. Even though I was certain he needed the money for drugs, I found a five dollar bill and handed it to him. Anyway what he did with the money was not between me and him -- it was between him and God. He shook my hand in gratitude.

"Thank you, Brother," he said. "I just can't seem to get up out of here."

He went on to tell me that he had been beaten up the night before. His assailants had knocked out four teeth. He smiled at me to prove it. Sure enough, there was a lone tooth in the middle and the two on both sides were missing.

Since I am in the recovery field and our program has a facility in Las Vegas I suggested that I take him there for help.

"Oh, I was there before," he said.

"And what happened?"

He went on to tell me that he had been unable to find a job when he was in our program previously. He also talked about having had a conflict with one of our staff members. There were several other reasons why he had failed, all excuses I'd heard before from those who weren't quite ready to get sober.

Before I left him in the parking lot I told him that our door was open when he was ready. As I drove away I had a sense of gratitude for my own recovery.

I was in a group session a while back when the topic of planning came up. It became a topic because one of the members of the group announced he was leaving our program.

"So what's your plan?" I asked him. "And why are you leaving?"

"Well," he said, "I've just been here long enough."

"That's not a plan," I told him.

I went on to explain to him that certain things needed to be in place before he left, otherwise he wouldn't have much chance of success.

"Well, what I'm thinking about" he said, "is going to live with a friend of mine who's also in recovery."

"How much money do you have saved?" I asked him.

"A few hundred," he said.

"Do you have a car and insurance?" I asked him.

"No."

"And how long have you been sober? And how long has your friend been sober?" I asked him. He was starting to get uncomfortable and squirmed in his seat.

"Both of us have been sober about six months," he responded.

The dialogue went on like this for a while. And it came out that this man had no savings, no car, and no insurance. Furthermore he had no idea of what he would do if his roommate relapsed and left him to pay the rent by himself. The good thing though, is that once all of this information was out in the open, he realized that he was making a dumb decision. He decided to stay until he had money saved and a better exit plan.

While in the midst of our addictions many of us drifted for years from one situation to another. Our planning was nil. We just kind of did whatever felt good at the moment. If it seemed like a good idea we did it. For many of us there was little or no planning in what we did next. Our whole life revolved around drugs or alcohol and obtaining enough to keep us high or drunk.

One of the major challenges for us here at TLC is helping those in recovery make the transition to life back in the real world.

While watching Fox news recently I saw a story that touched my heart. It was a story about a police officer who had been paralyzed for 25 years from a gunshot wound he had suffered while on duty in New York City. Appearing on the show with him was his wife and 26 year old son. The host of the show explained that after the officer was shot by his assailant, a young African-American man, he was able to forgive him. He even went on to become his mentor.

The commentator told us that the son was joining the New York Police department. In fact the son had already completed the police academy and was accepted as an officer. The commentator asked the father, a medal of honor winner, what he thought about his son's choice of career. The father explained, while breathing heavily with the help of a oxygen machine, that he respected his son's decision. He said that he lived without fear, and trusted God to protect his son.

Because many of us in recovery have such difficulty dealing with anger and resentments people like this paralyzed police officer amaze me. In my mind, he is a living saint.

I believe it is the essence of spirituality when we forgive. It doesn't make any difference whether the wrong is real or perceived. In the case of the police officer it was a real wrong. But for me, and many alcoholics and addicts that I know, our wrongs don't have to be real. I can imagine that someone has wronged me. Even though it is imaginary I can still carry a resentment against them.

I once heard someone say something profound about resentments in an AA meeting. He said that having a resentment against someone is like taking a deadly poison and waiting for the other person to die. And it is true. We sometimes carry this seed of anger, this seething resentment that eats at our guts.

This is a deadly state for those of us in recovery.

A client in one of our aftercare groups was frustrated because he had “a lot of feelings” that he didn't understand. He said that he sometimes just got angry for no reason. And when that happened he would lash out verbally at those around him. He said that he spent a lot of time trying to figure out why he felt such frustration. His body language and the look on his face bore out what he said.

Group members had some suggestions about how he could deal with his feelings. One of them told him that when he felt like lashing out at someone in anger, maybe he could turn that into an opportunity to express kindness. The frustrated client responded that he couldn't control how he felt.

When I took exception to that he looked at me in a questioning manner.

"When you are angry," I asked him, "do you lash out at everyone equally?"

"I don't understand what you're asking me," he said.

"Let me give you an example," I told him. Then I went onto explain that he probably wasn't expressing the same anger at his boss as he did to someone that he didn't like. In other words, he could modulate his levels of anger. He agreed with me, reluctantly.

I suggested that if he were able to regulate the amount of anger he showed people, then perhaps he could also be nice to people -- if he chose.

While he didn't make a commitment to be nicer, at least he heard what the rest of us had to say.

I was reading a story today in New Yorker magazine about how terrible conditions are in North Korea. Even the upper class has a difficult time getting enough rice to eat. They look at their neighbors to the north, China, as the land of plenty. Mexico, our neighbors to the immediate South come to our country because of the deplorable conditions in their country. Something interesting, though is that their neighbors to the South, Guatemala, look to Mexico as a land of opportunity. Mexico has problems with illegal immigrants from Guatemala similar to what the United States experiences with immigrants from Mexico.

This interests me because the news media today is beating the drums about how bad things are in our country. Unemployment stays at near 10%. We have two wars going on. We have an ecological disaster in the Gulf, and we're trying to fix our health care system. The bad news permeates our lives. Yet, in spite of how terrible things are here, people from other countries are risking their lives to get here. So are things really bad? Or is our perspective bad? I believe it is the latter.

It is true that our economy is worse than it's been in many years. And it is a fact that many people are out of work. We can take the perspective of dwelling on these negatives. We can be depressed because we're losing our house or can't pay our mortgage. We might be driving a five year old car. Or maybe we can't afford to replenish our wardrobe. We can focus on these things or we can take a more global view.

For me the global view is that I am simply grateful to be alive. While I have the capability of looking at all the negatives in our world, I choose to look at the positives. Because I want to feel good I look at the positives. Even though the media makes a living spreading muck, I choose to not accept it. And as a person who has escaped from the gloom and depression of addiction I don't have to today.

Instead, I choose to believe that I live in the greatest country in the world. Twenty years ago I was homeless, broke, and in the middle of my addictions. Today I have a great job, a degree of prosperity and am enjoying the promises that we hear of in the recovery rooms.

While it might seem simplistic to view the world this way, I believe that it is healthy to take charge of our lives. We can choose to look at the negative and use that as an excuse to not perform as well as we could. Or we can look at our land and our economy through the eyes of those who risk their lives to get here.

Arizona's Sonoran Desert is dotted with the unmarked graves of those who weren't fortunate enough to participate in what many of us complain about today.