"Flexibility" wasn't in our vocabulary at the time we were using drugs. We became obsessed with the cruel pleasures of our drugs and became too hard for all the gentle, subtle and infinitely varied pleasures around us. Our illness had turned life into a constant threat of prison, institutions, and death - a threat that made us even tougher. Eventually we became “fragile.” We broke at the slightest gust of wind - we were broken, defeated, and had no choice but to surrender.

But the beautiful irony of recovery is that in our surrender we have found the flexibility that we had lost in our addiction. It was the lack of flexibility that brought us down. We regained the ability to bend in the flow of life without breaking. As the wind of life blew, we felt its loving caress on our skin. In the past we would have rebelled against it as if it were a coming storm.

The wind of life brings us fresh air every moment - and with it new scents and new pleasures, full of variety and subtle differences. As we sway in the wind of life, we live, feel, hear, touch, smell and taste everything that life has to offer us. And as the new wind of life blows, we feel renewed.