I’ve been thinking about integration a lot—being a person of integrity I mean—as in Eric Erickson’s final stage of human emotional development “Ego integrity v. despair,” that apex of psychic maturity reserved for those of us aged 65+ who have somehow managed to get our acts together as we hit senescence.

One of the best things about the Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church is that we can integrate our faith lives with our recovery lives. We who are bilingual, that is equally familiar with The Big Book and The Book of Common Prayer, find it comforting to be at a gathering (or to read a blog post) where the discussion slides easily from Twelve Steps to Ten Commandments.

When I was still an active alcoholic, I was perplexed by the inconsistency between my profession of faith and my behavior. I longed for integrity, for feeling/being at one with myself. How could a choir-singing, theology-quoting loving mother of two also get drunk regularly and spectacularly? How could my mantra be, “This one doesn’t matter.” I was far from being put together; I was disintegrated.

And then came recovery. I can say without batting an eyelash, “My worst day sober is better than my best day drunk.” More and more my values and my actions have been aligned. By the Grace of God, with respect to picking up a drink or a drug, I have made daily choices that have kept me clean and sober.

And I have not done that by myself. It is only by going to meetings and hearing thousands and thousands of other recovering people talk about how they have made it through life—through unimaginable losses, challenges, and joys—that I have been able to continuously head in the direction of wholeness, peace, and sobriety.

Not alone. On my first sober anniversary, my sponsor gave me a plaque with the Serenity Prayer on the front and her inscription “Alone no more” on the back. I treasure that gift and that truth. The readings at church this past Sunday (July 18, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost) included Psalm 23 (which always makes me cry with its familiarity and its promise of protection) and Mark 6, where Jesus and the disciples go off to a “lonely” (deserted) place” but the crowds were there before them, and Jesus had compassion on them because they were “like sheep without a shepherd.”

We become at one with ourselves, integrated, when we stop trying to do it by ourselves. We recover when our ears are opened and we can hear the voices around us saying, “Alone no more.” One of my hobbies continues to be rumination, relishing all the mistakes I’ve made, all the times in my life (yes, even, and especially since getting sober) when I’ve blundered into foolishness, made terrible choices, or run away from a solution. But the compassion offered to me by Jesus, the structure offered to me by the disciplines of faith and Program, and the fellowship I enjoy both at church services and 12-Step meetings enable me to integrate my okayness and my imperfections and reach out to see if there’s anyone I can help today.

Christine H.