“We can make it. We are going to make it!” so pressed John Lynch as he and Franka Berger struggled against insupportable odds toward freedom—both were in dire straits. Their attitude served as a leitmotif throughout Eoin Dempsey’s novel White Rose Black Forest (2018) and resonated within my practice of the 12 Steps as understood in Chronic Pain Anonymous.

The We is significant; it suggests the components of the CPA’s spiritual fellowship: solidarity, like-mindedness, willingness, honesty, and humility, in union with Higher Power’s presence. From my first phone meeting in September 2017, I’ve felt understood and supported, moving through seven hospitalizations until opting for hospice’s palliative care last November. No longer am I alone with the burden of failing lungs and other evidence of aging.

Experience of the We also occurs during daily 12-Step work with my sponsor and others suffering with chronic pain and illness. No one tires listening to symptoms and their accompanying emotional pain. No one remains stuck.

The way out requires action: can make; are going to make. Here, open-mindedness and willingness prod the overwhelmed toward a different scenario. Thanks to working Steps I, II, and III, stony attitudes begin to splinter. A bigger picture of our flawed but graced humanness emerges. We are much more than our pain or illness. Breathing becomes more normal.

And then comes it. In CPA, emotional sobriety is critical to recovering what’s left of our lives. With the rest of the 12 Steps, we relax within our limits and participate. Slips do occur but help is a phone call away; within such dialogs, Higher Power manifests. So we give thanks for another twenty-four-hour day, as did Franka and John when they made it.