After the first couple of years in recovery, most of us start to feel like there are no more big deals. If we've been diligent in working the steps, the past is largely resolved and we have a solid foundation on which to build our future. We've learned to take life pretty much as it comes. Familiarity with the steps allows us to resolve problems almost as quickly as they arise.

Once we discover this level of comfort, we may tend to treat it as a "rest stop" on the recovery path. Doing so, however, discounts the nature of our disease. Addiction is patient, subtle, progressive, and incurable. It's also fatal - we can die from this disease, unless we continue to treat it. And the treatment for addiction is a vital, ongoing program of recovery.

The Twelve Steps are a process, a path we take to stay a step ahead of our disease. Meetings, sponsorship, service, and the steps always remain essential to ongoing recovery. Though we may practice our program somewhat differently with five years clean than with five months, this doesn't mean the program has changed or become less important, only that our practical understanding has changed and grown. To keep our recovery fresh and vital, we need to stay alert for opportunities to practice our program.

"Get real."

To addicts—even those of us with time clean—reality can be a dirty word. People telling us that our version of XYZ isn't real, that we are in denial about XYZ, or, worst of all, that our feelings about XYZ don't square with reality! They might as well be telling us to go XYZ ourselves!

When we are in active addiction, it is much easier to hold false beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. We don't want to hear the truth because we fear the truth will hurt us. In a sense, drugs keep us safe from having to deal with reality—until they don't. When we get clean, that barrier is removed, and the twelve-step process actively challenges us to discover, dismantle, and discard those beliefs that separate us from the truth of a situation and prevent us from being authentic and acting with integrity.

The ongoing struggle is in identifying which of our beliefs are not in harmony with reality. This process starts when we begin to trust that we might not have the most astute judgment about our choices. Our willingness to question the stories we tell ourselves often precedes our ability to see reality. We accept help from other recovering addicts as we navigate through the minefield of our alternate realities.

Our capacity to be in harmony with the world around us improves when our worldview widens and is shaped more by principles than by our disease. Reality becomes less distorted. The Serenity Prayer's meaning becomes astoundingly clear.

After a period of numbness, reality often stings. But the truth will help us, not harm us.