AA has been very good to us. Recovery has taken many of us places we never imagined we'd see when our worlds were about the size of a barstool.
One time, I was about five hundred miles from home and got completely lost on a trail. No signal. No people. Just woods. I wandered around for hours, getting more turned around by the minute. Fear set in hard. I started saying the Serenity Prayer on a loop, not because I was calm, but because it was the only thing I had.
A lot of us know that feeling. Maybe we're not lost in the woods, but we're lost in our own heads. We start circling the same fears, the same resentments, the same problems. The harder we try to force our way out, the more lost we seem to become.
Eventually, I slowed down enough to actually ask for help. Not demand it. Not bargain. Just a simple, honest, "God, please help me." A few minutes later, a guy appeared on the trail like it was the most normal thing in the world. I asked him how to get out of the woods, and he gave me a few clear directions. I followed them, step by step, and I was out in no time—safe, steady, back on my way.
I waited around to thank him. He never came out. I've never seen him again.
But I think about that moment a lot. Most of the time, help shows up after we calm down, ask for it, and then actually follow simple directions.
When was a time you were "lost" in recovery, and what finally helped you find your way back?
