One of Tina Turner’s most famous songs is, "What’s Love Got To Do With It?" When I hear it my head always shouts, “Everything!” Love has made me stick it out throughout my recovery. Love is what keeps me growing each day. Learning to love one another is the greatest commandment in the Book of Life. Looking back at my life now I agree learning how to love other human beings is a tremendous task.

Teaching others to love is what people should be doing. Teaching others to love that suffering person out there who has yet to see recovery is our mandate. We need to be reaching out to others that are around us with love. We are the example of recovery that others see. If we can’t love one another in recovery how can we love those that need recovery? The steps of recovery take us through a process that prepares us for loving ourselves and others.

I’ve seen "GREAT" members of recovery physically hit another member of recovery just because of some trivial argument. I’ve seen gossip within a clubhouse take down another member and the gossip was a total lie. I’ve seen members of recovery do such terrible things to other members because, "They just aren’t working a good program." Reaching out in malice is something I still don’t understand. I’ve heard that type of behavior passed off as constructive sharing and reaching out with concern.

I’ve heard it described as a "Character Defect" that they should work on. I’ve heard numerous excuses for un-loving behavior. It’s simpler to take the "easy road" when the hard road demands recovery. It’s easy to judge something rather than grow. Looking at other peoples warts and comparing those warts to our behavior makes staying in certain behaviors easier.

When we’ve reached the twelfth step we should have done the work required to bring about a spiritual awakening. The spiritual awakening has to be grasped. We need to awaken to the understanding that we are a child of our Creator and that we are an inheritor of the Kingdom. We need to embrace the fact that our Creator doesn’t have nieces and nephews, grandkids or step kids. Our Creator only has children and like any parent He has a very forgiving heart.

With that spiritual awakening pushing us forward we need to reach out to people around us who need recovery. We have been freely given a gift and that gift shouldn’t be a secret. We need to be sharing with others what was given to us. We need to openly be carrying recovery to those that we come in contact with in public, at school or even at the grocery store. Most important we need to be reaching to those in the meetings that are stuck. The person sitting next to you in the meeting may need the gift that you have been given.

I remember how it felt the very first time I was reached out to when I was stuck in my disease. I was trapped in chaos and then there was this person sitting beside me offering a way out. They came at me so simply. They asked "Are you through? Are you finished? Have you had enough? Do you want to be free?"

The person’s words were simple, for the first time someone was looking at me with eyes that had compassion in them. It wasn’t the first time they had spoken to me but I believe it was the first time I really heard them. I was finished. I wanted out of the darkness of my addiction and if that took me standing on my head in a corner for a year I wouldn’t have cared.

That person had more love in them than I could believe. They were awesome to watch. I wasn’t anyone special to them. I was just another person they had reached out to and it didn’t matter a wit to them who I was. Their constant drone was the same no matter what or who they were talking to, "You’re a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom." To them, recovery meant freedom and they were hurt each time they saw someone stuck.

The second time I ran up against the wall of love was when I was three years into recovery. I had just finished speaking at a meeting from the podium and I was on my way back to the coffee bar. The meeting was over and I was looking for a pop to drink. My best friend’s girlfriend came up to me and gave me a huge hug. "Joe, I hope you stay in the rooms long enough so we can love you into loving yourself."

Suddenly I was naked, it was my worst nightmare, you know the one… where you’re in the Clubhouse naked. Little beads of sweat started popping out on my forehead. Lori started to laugh at me. "You know it’s true don’t you." She turned and walked away.

It was true. My front yard looked great. I knew all about appearances and I made sure I looked great. I took to heart the saying "Suiting up." I never came to a meeting unless I looked good. My backyard was a totally different matter. I had heaps of stuff stacked up. Un-dealt with resentments, paralyzing fears, I was still totally ashamed of who I was. That baggage was laying all over inside of me. History was gaining power each day instead of recovery and new present beliefs.

I was in the rooms of recovery and I had the language down pretty good. I could recite the appropriate quotes, sayings and prayers. I was lacking in applied knowledge of the recovery process. I was avoiding doing the work by keeping busy with anything that would distract me.

I was young, so mainly I was messing around with girls. They were my distraction. It was simpler and more fun for me to date girls than it was to do the work I needed to recover. I used relationships and the excitement of that to keep me away from doing the work.

That day standing at the coffee bar, it became apparent that Lori knew what was going on with me. She had figured it out. Suddenly walls that I believed were invincible started cracking. "Oh crap!" If she knew, then, how many others knew about me? Fear crept in with its icy grip and squeezed my heart. Being found out was never in my plan.

That night I laid awake a long time puzzling over what I should do. Addiction hates action and that night I wanted action. Addiction hates anything that smacks of recovery, so it was doing it’s best to mark its territory. Finally I dragged myself out of bed and pulled out the book from my recovery group and let it fall to the ground. It was a game I played with myself to see what my Creator wanted me to learn.

Meditation and building up a stronger connection to God is recovery’s strongest tool. I had a basic understanding of that step. I had sat in lots of meetings where the tools were discussed, so I sat down with my book, read a few paragraphs and thought about what I had read. Working the steps that night suddenly became a priority for me but I had no one I could think of to work them with.

The next day I picked someone to be my sponsor and ran smack into love again. Looking into the eyes of that man I saw victory. I placed my hands in his and together we said a prayer and started down the path towards victory.

"I’m proud of you for coming here to see me. I wasn’t sure you’d make it to me though. Being in the rooms isn’t recovery. Sitting in the rooms doesn’t guarantee that you’ll see recovery. Only doing the things that I teach you, will get you peace of mind." "You need to know one thing though right now. You’ve let good, become the enemy of better."

That afternoon we sat together he showed me how to review my day. He showed me tools that allow me to start living in my skin with comfort. Even now, I sit at the end of the day and review and see if I’ve slipped back again into letting "good enough" run me. Another way I look at it, is this, "Easy or Hard" those are the choices I have today. Taking the easy way is simple; making the wrong choices for wrong reasons drives me nuts. Every time I do that I feel myself die a little bit. Taking the "easy way out" is slow death for me.

The fourth time I felt love was when I looked at my wife and knew she understood me and my addiction. I had drifted away from going to meetings over a period of time. We had been married for a few years. We had three young babies. We were both working our butts off and I just drifted away. I couldn’t look at her and say, "Honey, I’m going to a meeting. I’ll be back when it’s over." I couldn’t shut the door and walk away with her stuck with three babies and only herself.

I still belonged to a tape club and I got my monthly tape. I was listening to the latest tape on the way to town with my wife. The speaker said this, "The problem with those that don’t go to meetings is simple; they don’t hear what happens to those that don’t go to meetings." My wife laughed, "Guess what you’re doing tonight!"

I started back to meetings that night. I’d drifted away, but with the Grace of God I hadn’t become lost. It’d only been a few months where I hadn’t attended a meeting so getting back in the groove was simple.

What’s love got to do with it? Everything. Love is the best glue in the world. Love is the glue that "Old Timers" need to have an abundance of. If the Old Timer you know doesn’t have love to show then you know what you have to do. You have to bring love to them.