The Stoics believed the self-sufficient person was a fiction. We are social animals, and virtue is expressed in relationship.
There is a common misreading of Stoicism as a philosophy of radical self-sufficiency, the lone sage unmoved by external events. The Stoics themselves rejected this. Marcus Aurelius wrote: we were born for cooperation, as were the feet, the hands, the eyelids, and the upper and lower rows of teeth. It is natural to humans to live and work together.
The Stoics had a concept they called oikeiosis, a widening circle of concern that begins with yourself and expands outward to your family, your community, your city, humanity as a whole. This was not sentiment. It was a rational recognition that your flourishing is bound up with the flourishing of those around you.
Service to others was not an add-on to the Stoic life. It was a natural expression of virtue. Wisdom applied to the world. Justice expressed in action. Courage made available to those who need it.
"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness."
Seneca, Letters
Having had a spiritual awakening. The language is significant. The steps do not promise that the awakening comes before the work. It comes as the result of it. You do the practice, and something changes. Not necessarily dramatically. Often quietly. A different relationship with your own mind. A different capacity to be present. A different understanding of what matters.
Carrying the message does not mean becoming an evangelist. It means being available. Being honest about your experience when it might help someone. Being present in communities of recovery. Demonstrating, through how you live, that something is possible.
And practising these principles in all our affairs. Not just in recovery contexts. Not just when it is easy. The Stoics would say: this is the whole point. The philosophy that can only be practised in favourable conditions is not really a philosophy. It is a mood. The work is to carry it into difficulty, into ordinary days, into relationships, into everything.
Write down one person in your life who might benefit from your experience, not to be preached at, but simply to know they are not alone. Then write what you would want to say to them, not what you think you should say, but what is actually true from your experience. Consider whether and how to say it.