“Had I not been drawn, I could never have succeeded in the face of some daunting life challenges.”

More than twenty-eight years ago a spiritual advisor captured my attention with a profound remark. “Ron,” he said with deadly earnestness, “Yesterday’s sobriety is insufficient for today." I remember the moment because of the truth that resonated within his remark. Today my experience would say it differently. A progressive addiction requires a progressive recovery.

The several years leading up to my twenty-fifth anniversary in recovery were a period I now call my time in the wilderness. If that sounds painful, it was. But today, I have come to have a degree of emotional sobriety that is astounding to me. Many of my dependencies have simply lost their power as a result of what I know today as “the results of the Twelve Steps practiced at depth over time.”

Today when I tell my story of recovery, I speak most often of the need for increasing spiritual exploration, not to embellish me, but to increase the degrees of freedom from myself. The result is to further distance myself from addiction, and to find greater and greater well-being.

Without a progressive recovery, I could never have known the benefits of one of the promises of recovery: “We will know a new freedom and a new happiness.”

Today I am a professional speaker, author, and facilitator of transformative workshops helping others be Emotionally Sober for Life.