Running For Recovery

I remember that at about six months sober, I began to get depressed. Knowing that my disease loves to come at me in the form of grief, sadness, and melancholy, I started making phone calls right away. I'd been down this road before, and it ended in relapse and a jail cell in Marion County. There was no way that I was going to let that happen again!

I received two suggestions, one from my grand sponsor, and one from my sponsor. My grand sponsor told me to start asking Him to reveal His purpose to me in my prayers. Maybe I'll write about how that worked out on a Faithful Friday if I'm ever asked to guest write here again. Then my sponsor told me to go home and run a mile. "Really?", I asked. "Really!", he replied.

He went on to explain to me how the years of drinking and drugging had seriously affected my brain chemistry. Alcohol, opiates, cocaine; they all do different things like diminishing our serotonin levels, and changing how neurons react, and blah, and blah, and blah. The good news he told me, is that the brain has an amazing capacity to heal itself, but it's up to us to do some healthy things to help it along. I don't remember all of the biochemistry behind it, I'm not a professional like he is.

But I believed him, and I didn't want to relapse again, so I went home, strapped on an old pair of sneakers that I had laying around (it was an old pair of Sketchers, hardly fit to be used as running shoes), and jiggled my way around the neighborhood.

And it hurt. I was still smoking at the time, and I had put on a few pounds since getting out of jail. I didn't have a lot of money, and my diet wasn't very good. I was working 3-11 at night in a hotel, and eating out of a microwave when I got home at midnight. I told my sponsor that it hurt, and he told me that it would get better. He said that my body would release these things called endorphins, and that I would soon feel better. He said I would rest better as my serotonin levels balanced out, and that I would feel more balanced.

I quit smoking, and I started eating better. Not a lot better, but better. I got some running shoes, and I kept doing it. And he was right, I began to feel better. Don't get me wrong, I haven't turned into some kind of health and fitness fanatic, but running every other day has become an integral part of my recovery lifestyle today.

It's about discipline, and taking care of the body that God gave me; the body that I abused for far too long. It's about continuing to be willing to go to any length to stay sober. And lastly, it's about living in the 11th step. My runs along Edgewater drive have become part of my meditation now, my God time. Body, Mind, Spirit!

Thanks for reading,

Glenn

Today's guest blogger Glenn Humphreys is the author of Widowhood, Grief, and Love after Loss, a blog about grief, loss, and recovery.