Archive
All Over the Place
When I read my old posts I mostly just gave a rundown on what I’ve been up to and how I’ve been feeling. With the book coming out, stopping CorrCivic opening a detention facility, running a PAC in a tough world of national democratic fundraising, cooking and eating food, the house and the yard I’m jamming all the time. I’ve sworn to stop that and embrace the puttering pace but that vow has been overwhelmed by events.
On to the good stuff and the victories. I had a nice profile piece done in an online Minnesota publication. https://voyageminnesota.com/interview/meet-mike-trapp-of-leavenworth-kansas/
The book is out and I have the official launch planned for Leavenworth at the Red Hibiscus on July 8th 4pm-6pm. https://facebook.com/events/s/ribbon-cutting-mike-trapp-book/696092123306330/
With all that I managed to insulate my cubby. Our historic home was a rental so first steps have been eaves, shoring up the crumbling brick and gaps in the retaining wall.
If you want to buy the Practical Guide to Building a Better World. See me and save postage. Today I’ll be in Columbia through Tuesday. Hit me up if you want to hook up with a book. You can also pick one up from my publisher.https://breadandrosespress.com/products/the-practical-guide-to-building-a-better-world
I also caught Pride and gave the governor of Kansas a book and told her to run for Senate. She said “hell no” so I met with another great prospect yesterday. Gave the Christian Nationalists some words at the County Commission on the dangers of Christian sectarianism and a little lesson on Jesus’s core message. It’s a lot and it’s all over the place and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Think Nationally, Act Locally
I had the great pleasure of speaking to the Boone County Missouri Muleskinners on Friday for their weekly meeting. It was over Zoom and it went pretty well. They put the video on their Youtube channel. It begins with my friend Alyce Turner introducing me and reminding me of my biggest political defeat when I chaired The Committee for Rollcart Choice to try and keep Columbia, Missouri from banning automated trash collection. She references restoring recycling because Columbia’s Materials handling center was recently destroyed by a tornado. I’m posting the video link if you care to see the presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQf30-2Mies
If you prefer to read, here are my prepared remarks.
After writing a book on winning elections, governance, and advocacy I first need to make clear that my approach to politics is fundamentally different. Almost all political discourse in the US is around state and national issues based around a right/left dichotomy. Worse, the political discourse is heavily focused on horserace considerations more than substantive policy discussions. Rhetoric and sound bites play well on social media and cable news and politicians today exist who only have a political strategy and no strategy at all for governance.
As a longtime grassroots activist with a focus on building community with an anarchist’s heart and an ecologist’s focus on the bioregion I had a fundamentally different approach to politics. When I ran for city council my focus was not on pursuing any ideological victories or building a political platform for future political advancement.
When I was thinking about running, I asked the “why” question. I decided as a candidate I would run on my values but if I won, I committed myself to a governance agenda that recognized my fiduciary responsibility to the city as an organization, as a placeholder for long term capacity to ensure resident services. I also committed myself to the care and well-being of the 1,400 or so employees. I also decided that the concrete (sometimes literally) facts on the ground were more important than more ephemeral things like my political career and my constituent’s feelings about how the city developed.
My focus on good government challenged me to respect city policies and internal capacity and to focus on regular improvements and long-term planning. I long argued that as much attention we place on state and federal issues it is local government that matters most. Local governments operate utilities; electric, water, sewer, solid waste; deliver public safety with police, fire, and the courts; we guide and facilitate economic development, pass local laws, make land use decisions and more. From what it takes in taxes, fees, and other revenue compared to what it delivers, local government is the best value in politics. Politics even takes its name from polis, which means city.
All these points are well and good but what do they mean in an age of rising authoritarianism? They mean everything. An authoritarian agenda needs all levels of government to control the people and fulfill its awful purpose. One of the real strengths of our country is our system of decentralized power and local control. From voting to education to policing to land use, the patchwork of local systems that make up most of our governance systems serve as a check and balance from any group asserting a national governance agenda.
An approach that I call localism tells us to defer on national ideological agendas. Instead, we should look to our own local conditions to inform our path of building long term progressive change and protecting freedom and democracy. In Leavenworth, Kansas stopping CoreCivic from reopening their troubled detention facility as an ICE deportation center presents as the obvious issue to rally around.
CoreCivic through their chronic cost cutting and casual disregard for their employees, their detainees, and the law make themselves an obvious target. We highlight their long and spectacular malfeasance rather than the large national issues around immigration. We bring everyone to the table who wants to stop the facility from reopening with no litmus test.
As we work on this specific issue we strengthen our alliances, our individual and collective capacity, and the belief in the community that they can make a difference. Having a deep knowledge of local processes, relationships with the local power structure, and the unique political pressure points for local actors which can help guide messaging and approach has been critical in the success of the campaign.
More importantly we are manualizing our approach. We are telling the story to inspire action across the nation. We are also making connections with other activists in other communities who are fighting the same struggle. The national zeitgeist expresses itself within local communities and is best combated and ameliorated within communities based on their own conditions.
If you liked what you read and are interested in learning more about the practical realities of activism consider ordering my book. We should have books in this week, and they should ship the week after. https://breadandrosespress.com/products/the-practical-guide-to-building-a-better-world?fbclid=IwY2xjawKQPpNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFFRVdlMTdjQ0U5ZXFIeUhJAR4t9VcKwAmjbC0TRFkPMrp5PdLY9Boh372cUz-qdfq5rkuO7zFoWKmKtbDZLA_aem_O46YqlaAoNU-5hWACdnx4g
The Practical Guide to Building a Better World
I can’t believe I wrote a book. What was only an idea at the end of 2023 is this giant beautiful thing becoming more real every day. The milestones have come so thick I have not been able to celebrate each one. Today I want to acknowledge the ISBN #
The Library of Congress is under attack. The President fired the Head Librarian without cause and claims to have appointed the Deputy Director of Commerce, I think, as its head. The staff there point to the name and the fact that the president has no power over the Library of Congress and had two folks escorted from the property. The alleged new acting chief librarian has not yet tried to enter.
Having a book enter the Library of Congress has been something I’ve looked forward to as I moved my manuscript from rough draft to a perfected piece of physical media. I am not surprised that every good thing is under attack. A would-be authoritarian’s desire to control the Library of Congress is understandable. Preventing that misuse of power is baked into the system. We shall see what prevails.
Today, I still celebrate and proudly share my ISBN # 978-1-939899-86-6
You can preorder at Bread & Roses Publishing
https://breadandrosespress.com/products/the-practical-guide-to-building-a-better-world
Last night I missed a stair, rolled my foot, and ended up with a solid sprain. I hit it with RICE which has given me some unexpected time for reading.
I had picked up Steve Wiegenstein’s novel The Language of Trees. It’s the third of four (so far) in his historical fiction account of a utopian community in the Missouri Ozarks. I’ve been savoring the series with a little pause between each one.
It hits all the right notes. I am a long student of American utopian communities in general and Missouri ones in particular. I had read the founder of the Oneida Colony John Humphrey Noyes’s excellent history of American utopian communities when I was a first semester freshman and it made a big impact on me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Humphrey_Noyes
Steve Wiegenstein is also a fan. When the Columbia Men’s Book Club read his book of short stories he came to the meeting to talk about his book and he ended up joining our esteemed body. Being with friends with Steve makes reading his stuff a treat but the books stand on their own.
I love the Missouri history and geography and this book covers the very short and very brutal time when the old growth stands were cleared in 20 years. As devastating as the Civil War in many ways, I’m looking forward to learning something as well as exploring an important and sad time in history.
What I like most about reading Steve is his keen insight into the human condition. His characters are flawed and real and he captures the awkward struggle of navigating through life with the dialectics of our dreams and commitments and societal expectations and the yearnings of our hearts as well as anyone putting pen to paper.
You should catch the first book of the series for sure. https://www.stevewiegenstein.com/
The Language of Trees
Last night I missed a stair, rolled my foot, and ended up with a solid sprain. I hit it with RICE which has given me some unexpected time for reading.
I had picked up Steve Wiegenstein’s novel The Language of Trees. It’s the third of four (so far) in his historical fiction account of a utopian community in the Missouri Ozarks. I’ve been savoring the series with a little pause between each one.
It hits all the right notes. I am a long student of American utopian communities in general and Missouri ones in particular. I had read the founder of the Oneida Colony John Humphrey Noyes’s excellent history of American utopian communities when I was a first semester freshman and it made a big impact on me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Humphrey_Noyes
Steve Wiegenstein is also a fan. When the Columbia Men’s Book Club read his book of short stories he came to the meeting to talk about his book and he ended up joining our esteemed body. Being with friends with Steve makes reading his stuff a treat but the books stand on their own.
I love the Missouri history and geography and this book covers the very short and very brutal time when the old growth stands were cleared in 20 years. As devastating as the Civil War in many ways, I’m looking forward to learning something as well as exploring an important and sad time in history.
What I like most about reading Steve is his keen insight into the human condition. His characters are flawed and real and he captures the awkward struggle of navigating through life with the dialectics of our dreams and commitments and societal expectations and the yearnings of our hearts as well as anyone putting pen to paper.
You should catch the first book of the series for sure. https://www.stevewiegenstein.com/
Blessed New Years
I was blessed to ring in the new year with my fiance in our new home. We closed Thanksgiving week but it’s her busy time at work and we traveled to Michigan/Ohio for the holidays so we didn’t get to move in in earnest until December 30th.
It was a lot of work with us and the two teenagers but we pulled together nicely and got it done in time to kick back a little and enjoy the new year coming in. It was nice to only have to get out of bed two minutes before the new year for my sparkling juice toast and sweet kiss and I was back in bed before 12:02 when I got a Happy New Year text.
Moving and setting up house in a new relationship brings a lot of changes. One of the things that brought my partner and I together was a commitment to sustainability as part of our values.
Shae was a single mom but still really on it as far as recycling. Her oldest is into cooking and has done a lot of research on nutrition and learning to make healthy food versus ultra processed stuff. Being able to support and build on all that has complemented my long interests in what I would call right living, using moral reasoning to choose the best course of life considering sustainability, justice, and neighborliness.
Writing The Practical Guide this year has sharpened my interests in areas I’ve lagged in like personal health. Having a chapter on lifestyle as an instrument of change means you have to eat and exercise to optimize for health and avoid medical intervention. So I’ve done that to good effect.
With helping my partner through a difficulty, house hunting and then moving, starting a political action committee and completing a manuscript and seeing it through publishing has been a lot. Through it I’ve recycled, minimized my food waste, made real food at home for the family, and all the other right living tasks I could reasonably pull off.
When I’ve had to I’ve grabbed the fast food, skipped the gym, or made some other compromise with my overall values to have a smooth flow of life. You don’t have to mail it every time to get a comparable impact but not stressing over that last 10% that would take effort beyond my abilities.
I elevated for a couple days to get the move done and worked harder than I should. I cut a few corners though to make it a bit easier. My brother John says “Most moral choices are between the right thing and the easy thing.”
I want to work hard for a better world and for my family but I also want to take the time for self care, companionship, kindness, and especially whimsy when it can be found.
What are you doing to be happier, healthier, or more sustainable in 2025? I’ll be blogging everyday through Bloguary. Look for an update on #freeKevinBromwell and as January 6th approaches I’ll be talking about the County Party Initiative for the New American Community. Stay warm constant reader.
Holiday Letter 2024
What a year it’s been. The New Year found me in San Diego celebrating with my friend Steve from grad school. I always feel like, if I haven’t seen you for a long time when I do we’ll pick up where we left off and we did.
The La Brea Tar Pits have been on my list of things to do since I was a kid and they did not disappoint. I traveled on to the Bay Area where I stayed on another friend’s boat in the Berkeley Marina and also visited friends in Concord.
I was traveling in a Dodge Grand Caravan that had been given to me to support my homelessness work. During this phase of travel I started to work on my book The Practical Guide to Building a Better World. I began with an outline of each chapter and finished that in the first two weeks of the year.
After visiting friends I went back to travel, dispersed camping, hiking, seeing the sights and finding time to write. I had memorable visits to Death Valley and the surrounding area before heading East.
Chapter 1 was written as I more or less drive across highway 40 across Arizona and New Mexico. I stopped at a lot of ancient sites and took a deep dive into Petroglyph National Monument. I stayed a few days in Gallup which I’ve always liked and spent a day in Canyon de Celle which had also been on my list for a long time.
I stayed in more motels then usually because it was fairly cold for van sleeping. Between completing 28 days of stoic philosophical exercises and building in a routine of exercise and writing I accomplished what I wanted to on the trip.
Coming back through Kansas I visited Shae who I’d been talking to during my trip after starting dating before I left Leavenworth for an epic road trip last November. It went well and I returned for a Valentine’s Day date and she and the kids visited me in Columbia as well.
I had left my job to travel and write but I did some homeless outreach work and related case management in Columbia in the Spring for a couple of months with 4-A-Change. My brother John has taken over the business since I left Columbia but as he was between case managers I helped out until he could hire someone and I helped train them.
It was timely as I wrote my chapter on social service delivery doing the work. I had some modest successes and showed I could still do it. I also did training on case management for volunteers with CoMo Mobile Aid and Loaves and Fishes and later for the Flourish Initiative while I was steeped in the local resources.
Mostly though I was struck by the increase in homelessness and the difficulties at finding housing. I also noted a lot more seniors out there. It’s getting tougher and meaner every day with services increasingly strained.
My romance with Shae continued to blossom and we took a romantic weekend to Excelsior Springs. Our spending time together led me to staying over more until in retrospect we were living together.
Adjusting to family life was a nice transition and being a writer is a good lifestyle to relocate for your relationship. I kept on pace with the book and over the summer I found my voice for the book and began telling more stories versus technical details on building positive change.
We started to look for a property to buy but we struck out on finding the right live/work space for her photography studio. We did find a great historic home and we closed on it just before Thanksgiving.
I finished my manuscript and began to edit. A month or more of that and it was off to the publisher. We’re through the copy edit and initial cover design. We should be having presales together shortly after the holidays and should have books in the spring.
We’ve been packing and getting ready to move early in the next year. It’s very exciting.
I also reconnected with some old campaign staff and organizers who were excited about the book. Together we launched a political action committee called the New American Community to support my organizing and to promote localism. We’re claiming July 4th, 2024 as our born on date.
We supported some house candidates with fundraising assistance and built a digital fundraising operation. We have been preparing materials as well as doing some election advertising around the overall disappointing national election. Mostly though we’re building for the long haul.
Our goal is to identify, train, and support an organizer in every county in America, all 3,153 of them. We’re starting with the hard ones first. Our big campaign for 2025 will be to outreach and organize with county parties.
We believe that especially in very Republican areas organizing to win an election every 2 years is not the best strategy. We would like to see county parties organized as community benefit organizations working to meet the needs of their residents whatever that may be.
Think Nationally, Act Locally is our motto so we’re starting in Kansas where we received a promising welcome from the state party. We’re also talking to Missouri leadership and have been well received where we’ve been able to make contact.
Tomorrow Shae and I fly into Detroit to spend the holidays with my family and friends. New Years will find us in our new home celebrating a late Christmas with the boys.
On a personal note I’m down 62 pounds since my 2023 high. After returning to Leavenworth I joined a gym and hired a trainer to work on my posture and gait. I have been discharged from treatment for my liver and my sports medicine doctor who was addressing my knees.
Life is good and I’m excited to see what adventures 2025 brings. The move, the PAC organizing and book tour promise another year of consequence and travel. I hope this year your holidays are safe and bright. I will close with an important message from Batman.
Its not been a great year for blogging…so far
Hello faithful reader,
It’s been a long time since my last post. Sorry to leave you hanging. A lot has happened since my last post and I’ll use my time to try to get you up to speed. I was pretty new on the book writing project when I was still blogging in January. Today the book is being copy edited through my publisher Bread and Roses Press. Its a great feeling of accomplishment to have faced the blank page and been able to bring a concept to completion.
It’s taken a toll on my blogging for sure though, but for everything there is a season. As I turn from writing to editing and then on to marketing and promotion the blog is going to grow in importance. Every long absence from posting brings a commitment to post on the regular moving forward, but I am confident I mean it this time.
When I fell off on blogging I had turned Cookie Monster, the faithful minivan and short term housing vehicle towards point east. I ducked up behind the Sierras to get out of the way of another atmospheric river and ended up heading back to Death Valley. I had planned on camping just outside of the entrance after learning there is no more free campground camping there. I ended up just camping at a roadside park and then making my way into Nevada. After checking out the sites near Beatty I think I realized all the passes east were snow covered did I accept I had go back into Death Valley to get back home.
Once I got back on my journey to the east in a way that I could actually go I made a decision and found myself on 40. The blue highway stuff was too much at this point. I ended up traveling across 40 and mostly staying in hotels. There was a lot to see and I needed to make miles so that’s where I fell off on the blog.
Through my travels I had been talking to someone I was sweet on and dropped in for a visit on my way back through. Visits, turned to romantic weekends away, turned into living together and last week we closed on a house in Leavenworth.
In addition to writing The Practical Guide to Building a Better World I also formed a Federal political action committee called the New American Community to support my national organizing. The NAC’s mission is to identify, support, and train an organizer in every County in America, all 3,153 of them.
We believe in localism, pragmatism, pluralism, and the empowerment of every citizen to understand and improve their community. We believe that County parties can be multi-focal organizing hubs improving the lives of citizens everyday and not just knocking on a few doors every couple of years.
We have been raising money and building infrastructure as well as our work to impact the November elections. You can follow along at https://newamericancommunity.org
My goal for the blog is to be more substantive and idea focused but continue to be fresh and unfiltered. I plan to blog twice a week focusing on change strategies identified in the Practical Guide. These include lifestyle, organizing, politics, policy, the arts, mutual aid, social entrepreneurship, social services, and more.
Thank you faithful readers and new folks to the blog. Please comment, follow, and share when I put up something that grabs you.
NA step 2 part 2
Hmmm, just tried to link to the cyber recovery page after writing a little intro but it just cancelled out my post. Dang. Well this is part of a project to translate the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous into simple concrete English with all hearing references removed. I hope to finish by Sunday in spite of being horridly busy.
http://www.cyberrecovery.net/NA/StepTwo.html OK, there’s the link, it came up when I was trying to paste in the actual language of the step. Let me try that again.
“We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Some people say church is for people are afraid of Hell. Knowing God is for people whose life has been Hell. Faith is the gift we get for accepting the truth. If the second step is hard we should look at what we think is important or valuable. If we feel we are not getting important stuff or it doesn’t work well we should change. We want to change. Step 2 is about finding and using extra power to change. Believing is knowing what we think is important and what we hate. Believing helps us get what we want in the future. Being weak and feeling trapped makes us value not feeling pain. When we start to love and do God’s will we can still have bad things happen because what we think is valuable hasn’t changed yet. Changing what we think is right as God changes our life helps us “come to believe”.
One way to figure out what we really want is to put in words what we want in the future. It helps to believe in what will help us get what we really want. When we know the future can be good without limit it changes how we see. Many people try to clearly remember what they wanted out of life in early recovery. Then when it happens we will be happy. As we grow in recovery new dreams come. When we tell these dreams to others in recovery we grow and become stronger. Sometimes our dreams help other people instead of us.
We see more when we learn from what others have done. We become more free and helpful to others when we train, study, and work on what we are learning. A part of changing is enjoying how we have changed and seeing it help others. It helps when we can Give it up to God when we believe God can’t help us enough. The belief that God can’t help us is old or not thought out or only a piece of the truth. Most of us are surprised we can change what we believe about God. D0ing drugs hurt us more then health and legal problems but have hurt the way we think. If you put in wrong thoughts you get out wrong thoughts and actions. Because we were afraid we did not slow down and think clearly. We get used to thining wrongly and believing bad things will happen.
When we did drugs we thought the world was bad and we continue to think that. Healthy relationships are an important part of life. Being healthy means we have healthy places to go, healthy things in our life, and healthy people to be around. As we change we can feel weird as we change how we deal with people. Just because something feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean its wrong. We have to ask other people in recovery about stuff that feels uncomfortable. We feel uncomfortable as we change how we look at the world but haven’t gotten used to it yet. If we are sensitive and respectful to God we can learn to see things in a new way. We stop having beliefs that are to small to work.
Sometimes we make stuff by really believing things we knew were true but we couldn’t really believe. Addicts are sensitive to the truth even when they deny it or hide from it. Growing God shows us that we make ourselves and how we make ourselves affects other people. Staying close to God keeps us in our new beliefs. Our beliefs get stronger and more a part of us.
Things that don’t work for us take time to get rid of but beliefs won’t change by themselves. Its easier to go looking for a belief we may have been interested in for a while. We can try to find something that we feel good about and try to learn more about it. Many people find that what they believed as children will work now. Being confused by using drugs might have kept our beliefs from working good. Our new beliefs are not only easier but work better and we get more of what we want. The need for beliefs that work is stronger then being afraid. Once we belief this step it will stick with us and we won’t have to go back and do it again. Thinking about stuff all the time was a way we used to get stuff we thought we wanted. We had problems because we needed so much. Thinking about drugs all the time was about feelings and not meeting our needs. People could see we were crazy. Every time we give up an old fear our freedom and responsibility increase. As we give up our old fears our faith grows. Faith gives us more energy and allows us to do more with what we have. We are clear headed and relaxed.
Fear is false beliefs that we think are real and it is important to addicts. Fear keeps us from doing stuff that hurts us or makes our lives worse. When we are sane fear keeps us in a place where we are comfortable and our feelings won’t get hurt. When we were addicts much of what we believed was crazy. In other areas some things we think we know are not true but it doesn’t matter. Many things are in the middle and sometimes it matters if we are right. Figuring out what is true or not is a lot of work that we have to do every day. Freedom in recovery is comparing what we get to what we lost from being an addict. The longer we are clean the more important the truth is and that is why we keep going to meetings and working the steps. When we were using drugs we were afraid of getting caught and we may have continued to be afraid in early recovery. Maybe our real secret was we built our own cage out of fear? We replace fear with faith. We start to work the steps and we learn to feel pain without using drugs. When we remember the old craziness we learn to face the truth and get better.
Well that’s about all I have this afternoon. Looks like I won’t finish step 2 this week. I will try to get it done on my vacation. I am looking forward to not being maddeningly busy all the time. The only reason I could do this is I am supposed to be doing something else and I’m not. I’ve lost a little focus with a little “short term ego depletion” from all the challenging stuff I’ve been doing.
Step 2 part 1
http://www.cyberrecovery.net/NA/StepTwo.html
Cyber Recovery posts the steps of Narcotics Anonymous electronically. I have been asked by a deaf individual to translate the steps into concrete, simple English with all hearing references removed. I did this orally and it was immensely helpful and personally rewarding for myself to understand the material and to grow in my health literacy skills. Here is the first half of Step 2, I hope to finish by Sunday.
Step 2
Not seeing our life is good is like still doing drugs. We can focus to much on things that are wrong. We can focus to much on a thing that is good. We can look at the good things in our life to much and have an accident. Drug addicts look at the world in three ways. We can think things are to good and not pay attention. We can think the world is sad and unhappy and feel sad and unhappy. We can also look at the world with clear eyes and see thinking like a drug addict makes us unhappy. When we see clearly we can find a balance. We can see good and bad and respond like we should. Seeing things as they are is a gift. We can move forward without being afraid of a disaster. Life is not happy all the time or sad all the time.
Doing the same thing and thinking it will be different is what drug addicts do. We have to think about our old way of doing things to have a different life. If we don’t its still like when drugs controlled our life. If we trust enough to act differently we can see change can happen. We do something different and different things happen. We are moving forward. Knowing what real life is makes us sane.
Being an addict makes us obsess over stuff. “Coming to believe” lets us see what is real. Thinking can only take us part way to God. What we say to ourselves has to match what is real. When they are different we suffer. We have to work on this every day. We believe what we have done.
Faith is trusting without having done it. Belief can be what we have done or faith and what we have done. In the old days people submitted to a king. When we ask “is it okay?” to someone we are submitting to them. We all have people and things we submit to. We submit to things we believe in. In recovery we look at what we believe in.
This choice is very clear in recovery. Early in recovery we can decide not to submit to things that make us feel bad. We learn to decide what it is to be sane. Choosing what to believe takes practice. Some addicts didn’t know they could choose what to submit to. Some addicts never thought to try and resist. Submitting appeared like we had to.
Believing in something is giving up to that idea. Our seeing gets bigger when we look at things like other people do and feel. We talk to others about what we each feel and do. We can talk to others and read books to know how to stay clean. “Coming to believe” means we can stop submitting to bad people and bad things. We can ask ourselves, “Can I do better?” Looking at ourselves every day helps us see reality. We start to forget to worry about tomorrow and yesterday. The parts of yourself you don’t like are often crazy. We would not choose to do those things today. We have a bad life when we are not grateful.
Being sane in recovery must meet our needs each day. It is natural to feel confused as you change. When we are confused or upset it means we are changing. People in meetings and God can help us even if we haven’t worked all the steps or gotten very far in recovery. In recovery people are here for us and we are here for others. This is not true when we act like an addict to control other people. We can’t expect people to treat us better because we stopped doing drugs. We can treat people better who stop doing drugs if we want to. It is important to do it because we want to help or be nice and not because we expect something. What we do willingly is different then what we have to do. Being part of a group means we respect each other.
Multiconstruct 
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