Northwoods Recovery

Going to recovery meetings, I often meet people whose active participation in maintaining the machinery of recovery, doing the nuts-and-bolts work necessary for keeping recovery alive and fresh for the newcomer, gives me cause to wonder — somewhat guiltily — if I shouldn’t be doing some of that myself.

Teri is one of those people. Although known to me only through recovery meetings, I take comfort as well as pride in claiming her for a friend. 

Like most of us, Teri’s recovery story is one of periods of sobriety derailed by relapses. After a quarter-century of active addiction, she first became clean in 1999, only to relapse less than a year later. Years of recovery punctuated by multiple relapses triggered through family crises followed, ultimately serving to become her current sustainable recovery. 

A journey prominently snarled by detours and wrong turns resulted in Teri graduating from her personal school of hard knocks with honors. Those painfully learned lessons see her now six years clean and implacably determined to stay that way, focused on all that recovery has given back to her. In her own words: “No matter what” she is in this recovery for good. 

Teri keeps busy with area recovery work; she was a speaker this year at the Journeys convention in Minocqua and serves as treasurer for one Woods and Waters NA group and group service representative for another. On the planning committee for next year’s Journeys convention, she also sponsors recovering addicts whenever asked and always stands ready to help with recovery functions statewide. 

Though more than a little impressive, service work is not the most important aspect of her personal program. 

The first thing one learns about Teri is that she’s a doting grandmother 16 times over, and deeply committed to the welfare and well-being of each one of her grandchildren. I had the privilege of meeting her daughter and youngest grandchild last year — Erika was a recovery Coach at the time — and can easily see the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. 

Through making amends for the damage caused by her years of substance abuse, her former addiction-driven estrangement from family has undergone the transformation at the heart of Teri’s recovery. Happily living the role of grandmother is her program. 

Teri’s gratefully owned recovery is supported and cherished by children and grandchildren who — guided by her sterling example — can say with absolute certainty: We Do Recover.