Phone Muscles
I received a phone call one Friday afternoon from a friend in my recovery program whom I met at the Journey of Hope Retreat #16. With his permission, I am able to use his first name, Mike and discuss what we discussed over the phone. Thanks to him, I was able to come up with this particular blog topic I titled “Phone Muscles.”
During our conversation, Mike mentioned he was making the call, not because he was in danger of acting out or in a bad place, but because he needed to get back to making daily recovery-related phone calls and strengthen what he called his “phone muscles.” What an awesome yet simple term to use. I have always commented to my sponsees that they need to make at least one recovery-related phone call every day and if they cannot actually speak to someone, then at a minimum they need to leave three detailed check-in voicemails with their accountability partners. However, until my conversation with Mike, I didn’t have a good term for the practice of making daily phone calls. Now, I do!
As a former professional athlete (I jest) I am accustomed to a daily workout regimen to maintain my performance. If I don’t train my muscles daily, then I won’t get stronger and my overall performance will drop. Furthermore, there is no way I could just get into the gym and bench 405-lb without having trained on a daily basis, I would get crushed! I have to start slowly, one work out at a time, one day at a time and build up to that amount of weight! Such is the case with recovery. If we don’t practice our recovery tools on a daily basis, we will not benefit from those tools. We will not train ourselves to use the tools when the time comes; when we most desperately need it!
It begins with small increments in recovery; to try to do everything all at once can seem like a monumental task. Make one phone call a day when you are healthy, the odds are, if you have been doing this regularly and establishing good f
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