I was at a meeting yesterday with a newcomer who talked about how shaky his sobriety felt. The topic was “going to any lengths,” and this young man said he was sure this shakiness was his own fault, that he must not be working a good enough program.

I just wanted to march across the room and hug him. Early sobriety is so uncomfortable on so many levels. At the beginning of it I was a big onion of a person, with layers of self-imposed, stinky difficulties enveloping the pretty cheerful, well-intentioned, mostly kind person I really am. All I did for a “program” was not drink, go to meetings, work at the Steps. And, gradually, life got good.

It took me years before my own understanding of “going to any lengths” evolved from “doing more” to “trusting more”—in HP, the Steps, other people, and life, itself. I think what I mostly had to do was learn to loosen my grip, give fear a swift kick whenever it reared its ugly head, and, in general, let life be okay.