"Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality."— Abraham Lincoln
By now the resolutions, that most people had set to enter 2016, have begun to fade. 
Goals and New Year’s resolutions are great for vision, but lack the mechanics to get one to successful completion.
Sustained successful recovery cannot be attained with vision or willpower alone. Willpower is the unwavering strength to carry out one’s wishes. Willpower is instinctual but needs help to be sustained. This is where mastery of self-control, repeated over time creates sustained successful recovery. If addiction is “habits to the bad”, successful recovery is “creating habits to the good”. “Pushing the dark out” is hard. “Inviting the light in” is so much easier.
We are social beings innately. If we are not touched, loved, and nurtured we are at risk for dying in a condition known as “failure to thrive”. Addiction is a disease of isolation. Connection is the antidote to addiction. Often at one’s darkest hours in the addictive process one feels completely alone, misunderstood, gripped with fear for being found out for their actions, and afraid if people “knew the real them” they would be rejected. 
One knows they cannot continue as they are, but in quandary about how to get out of the disease and never ending cycle of addiction.
12-Step programs, therapy, therapeutic treatment groups, connection with program and group peers, all help us come out of isolation and gain support for the journey.
Achieving success in recovery is more than self-control. Self-control gets tiring. Self-control is strengthened like a muscle through repeated habits. Habits help create the innate sense. Habits help us achieve mastery and override fear. Habits “to the good” help us feel a mastery of control and increased sense of self-esteem.
Additionally, finding others to cheer you on, carry you when you are weak, and cheering others on in a recovery community, help gather sustenance and energy for continued momentum.
See the vision, have the willpower, do the work to create good habits, and don’t go it alone!
One of my favorite scenes is when the little girl, played by Natalie Wood, after trials, tribulations and nay-sayers regarding 
If one hasn’t broken a bone, one can continue to ride. Many get up battered, bruised and bandaged, but then continue on towards their goal. Paulo Coehlo noted in his book The Alchemist: It does not matter if you fall, but what truly matters if you fall down 7 times, be sure to get up 8! Successful recovery will have moments of falter. Get back up, dust yourself off, and get back to the basic drills that you learned that keep you safe. Know, observe, and accept your limits, but don’t stop training.
Bringing my mind to the present gave me presence of mind. Just for this week I am on task. Just until the leaf and the crack in the asphalt, I can do this. What a gift!
Addiction creates etched pathways that make going to the drug, or process, an automatic in times of high stress. The job of recovery is to create new habits which circumvent those old etched addictive pathways in the brain. The goal of recovery is to create new re-wired habits in the brain that keep one safe and stable consistently over time.
The positioning of the giant shark looked flayed as if it was a crucifix. The image was haunting to Mr. Skerry. He felt both pictures told a story that he hopes his photo journalism can tell with a message he hopes to get out with his work. He hopes that people will understand the sea can be scary, but it can be a place of wonderment and liberty. The sea, while at times frightening, can be freeing. He related his wish to help people understand that we need to do what we can to help life, educate, and effect change.
The living waters can be redemptive if one has a curiosity to enter the murky depths primed for exploration. Recovery has its own soulful experience. Dive in! I have seen the images of proof in my office. 
I, or someone trained by Patrick Carnes in his prescribed 30-task healing model, can offer a map and guide one to safety. One can reach beyond the Emerald City and restore oneself to themselves. If it is a fit, one can go home again empowered and whole. 
