“Time Takes Time”

The AA saying "time takes time" encapsulates one of recovery's most essential yet challenging principles—the necessity of patience with the natural healing and growth processes that unfold gradually over months and years of sobriety. This deceptively simple phrase addresses the modern tendency toward immediate gratification and the unrealistic expectations that often accompany early recovery about how quickly life should improve.

This self-assessment is designed to help you examine your relationship with time, patience, and natural healing in recovery. It explores whether you can allow recovery processes to unfold at their natural pace, identifies areas where impatience might be creating unnecessary suffering or premature action, and helps you develop greater trust in time as an essential component of recovery success.

The assessment examines not just your intellectual understanding of this principle but your emotional and practical integration of patience, including how you respond to slow progress, setbacks, and the natural ups and downs of recovery growth.