I love the fact that Recovery is taking on so many different faces today. In the human evolutionary scheme, a movement less than 100 years old is still classified as "in its infancy." And it was 1935 when Bill W. and Dr. Bob first met in Akron, Ohio and ended up birthing something unprecedented and miraculous: Two men had a baby that started a revolution.
I love those guys and the first 163 pages of the Big Book and the two woman who were their pillars of strength—particularly Lois, who should have been canonized seven times over by now. Thank God for them, all of the pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous, for the sweat and tears that paved the Mother Road.
But Route 66 is a lot older now. And even though very little about it has changed, the world around it has continued to evolve. We are living in a new age with ever-quickening energies and rays of enlightenment streaming in through windows of scientific research about the brain and habits and human behavior. We have everything from ancient modalities to progressive breakthroughs working in concert to offer unprecedented opportunities for holistic healing, optimal health, and spiritual awakening.
It would be amazing if I could relocate everything I truly loved about Route 66—the entire bundle of AA joy and laughter and truth-telling and accessibility—if I could find a way to bring those things into a context that enables my soul to dance freely. But Route 66 is set on preserving the past. It's the perfect path for some, but I could never go back there again. I need to be right here, connecting more randomly but more authentically and focusing on self-love and not self-judgment. I need to embrace uncertainty and let go of rigidity, speak my truth instead of parroting words given to me, and find the Steps that work for me in "recovering" my precious authentic self instead of recovering from anything.
But here's something profound: It was the time I spent on Route 66 that enabled each and every one of those insights. It also enabled me to know to the bone that a clean, clear and present life is simply (in the words of one of my HSM peeps) "waaaaaay better in every way!"
Holly has a vision for Hip Sobriety—a vision of disrupting the recovery movement with a progressive, research-based, ever-evolving, open and free, self-love focused, multi-modality, holistic, highly individualized, incredibly effective, nothing-else-like-it, fucking amazing program.
I know she wants to open clinics and hallelujah for that. But I would love to have a long list of local Hip Sobriety gatherings where I can drop in to connect and share, an 800-HIP-SOBRIETY help line, and occasional Hip Sobriety Happenings with huge crowds of amazing Love Warriors. I want to see this thing take off like a rocket and circle the globe. What she's bringing together is so much bigger than drinking alcohol or not drinking alcohol. It's a formula for living out loud, for realizing each and every day the pure joy of constantly evolving into our best Self.
