Today, perhaps more than ever before, we are struggling as people in recovery to establish a positive identity in society. What has caused this identity crisis? How do we re-establish ourselves as useful and vibrant in a community that remembers what we used to be like?

The cultural settings of different ages may change many remaining point of views, who chose to remember the past us, but still can't see through the hazy to see the present; better versions of ourselves. The change we have exprienced may be dramatic, the change maybe a little more subtle. The importanance is that the changes remain constant, and ever-growing. Either way, the two remain at the same place and sometimes at the same time; stored within in ourselves, wanting to be seen by everyone you come into contact with. Our mission in recovery, in fact is a direct and intimate response to ourselves and our unceasing yearning for happiness. We deserve to rediscover ourselves and rediscover our happiness.

As we draw near to the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it is essential that we remind ourselves not to entrust our recovery to anyone but the owner of your recovery. We don't rely on politics, social events, or economics to keep us clean and sober today. For many of us, outside of ourselves the only other primary reliance we do hold in our sobriety is spiritual. Which is pretty much exceptable at any age and every nation.

At the same time, as we live out our mission, it can and should impact social, economic, and political order of societies in which we live. When we apply what we have learned to the daily activities of our lives, it elevates every honest human endeavor in all aspects of our society. We are alive and active. We have the power to transform lives, communities, and how society reacts toward what once was an unspoken stigma to many.