I got my britches in a twist a couple weeks ago when I posted what I thought was a thought-provoking question on the social network page of a recovery fellowship to which I belong, but it got shot down with impunity as though I was a schmuck off the street who didn’t have a clue what recovery was. I was simply trying to be poetic when I posed the question:

Considering the term “recovered” do you think we are more like a found lost coin or a reupholstered sofa?

I, myself, am both, but I was surprised at how defensive many people got about the word “recovered.” Those who could apparently not relate to my poetic language were quick to point out that we suffer from a very real disease, and delivery from it is neither trivial like a coin nor trashy like worn out furniture. I thought maybe I threw gasoline on somebody’s lit match. So let me explain where my mind was when I penned the question.

Jesus told a parable of a woman who lost a coin worth a tenth of her life savings. The woman searched high and low, sweeping her whole house until she found it, then called all her friends and threw a “lookie what I found!” party. Christ said there is just such a party when a sinner repents. (Luke 15:8-10) I’m that kind of lost and found coin. God celebrates over me, because I was lost but now I am that kind of recovered.

My mother and my wife both are skilled in sewing and the art of upholstery. I have seen old pieces of furniture given new life with new fabric. It is a joining of “they don’t make them like that anymore” sturdy quality with the fresh look of a whole new covering. I am that kind of sofa. I’ve got something underneath worth redeeming. I’m not trash. I have no business on the street or in a garbage heap. God found something in me worth holding onto, but He loves me too much to keep me the way I was. He is gently recreating me, starting with the frame of what I was but clothing me in kindness, gentleness, and love, adorning me with all the wondrous fruits of the Spirit woven into a fabric of His mercy. I am that kind of recovered.

Also, I am a compulsive overeater, blessed with abstinence today, and fitting myself to be of maximum service to God and those about me, freed from the obsessions of my past, and able to walk through my kitchen, drugstore, or market without pouring or pouting over what is no longer my food, but have turned my attention to the help I can be. I have divorced myself resolutely from the cookies, cakes, candies, ice-cream, and nachos that once were my bedfellows. They have packed their bags and found someone else to haunt. I’m over them, and though I weigh and measure what is mine to keep from substituting God’s providence for my entertainment, I am that kind of recovered.

“We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.” (Forward to the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous)