Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬-‭4

Here’s another thing the Bible and the Big Book have in common—parodical statements not only abound but are justified at the forefront of the text.

Recovery literature hammers home suggestions that when we are disturbed, there’s something wrong with us, no matter the cause.

Scripture holds out what is commonly shunned (suffering) and asks us to not only accept it but rejoice in it.

In fact, the reasoning for this is that the suffering we experience will end up bearing the fruit of hope which we so desire in our suffering.

We look for a way out. We want peace and hope and serenity. But we want it breathed out on us in an instant. Certainly, we’ll straighten up our act once we get to feeling better.

But the true path to permanent sobriety and a purposeful life has us pass directly through our worst time. We pile on the experience and are burdened by it.

We aren’t given a free pass to succumb to it, but we should recognize that enduring it well will always give us the wisdom and hope that can be born only through experience.

When we begin to zoom out and look at the whole of our life’s experience instead of just our drinking and using, the true significance of this passage seeps out.

Yes, we must get to the end of our drinking as quickly as possible. Once we’ve turned down the path of addiction it must be arrested. But the idea that it is our sole malady is fool-hearty at best.

Addiction becomes a framework of experience that we can now help others through. And we can use this same framework in the difficulties we are sure to experience in sober living.

With the confidence of the hope from experience, we can begin to greet new difficulties with the reluctant, knowing embrace that assures us we are able, through His strength, to walk through it.

God, give me a piece of your eternal endurance.