Time To Take Charge

by Paul Churchill | Sep 3, 2015 | Early Sobriety, Expectations, Helpful Tips

As much as we learn “Let Go” in recovery we must learn to grab a hold of life by the,..well…grab life by the horns I guess. That’s what I’m focused on today – The Right Now-ness of Life. There have been plenty of days where I just la-de-da’d my way through “wearing life as a loose garment” being all, “I don’t have to worry, God’s got my back…, things will all work out.” And believe me, I’m not downing this – those are some very good ways to live a sober life however, there comes a time when you just have to get real, stand up straight and make things happen. Days when you just have to get the hell up, put on the big kid pants and charge at life like it was your last day on earth.

One thing I used to take solace in was saying, “I’m just waiting to see which way God leads me.”

Today, awaking with a breath of fire, I set out with determination. Today I will get things done – like I used to before I turned into a, well, let’s say, a less than highly productive member of society. I love days when I feel like this; motivated, full of energy, not willing to allow anything to get me down or hold me back. There’s so much to do!

Right now, in this moment, I absolutely love what I’m doing. I get to talk to cool people all over the states and the world who are all somehow related to addiction recovery. I get to write, which even though I may not be an award winner (yet), I write from the heart and it seems to make an impact, thus making me feel accomplished and useful. Walking into treatment, people are not typically feeling very good about themselves. There’s a lot of shame, guilt, regret and remorse. It takes a while before one is able to get over those things, but slowly confidence is regained and at least some of those things can be met face on. Facing some of these particular feelings are really hard. Shame is probably the single most powerful thing that holds addicts back from becoming truly well for the long-term.

Just to be clear, shame is something you feel about something you did, while guilt is about something you did to somebody else. Group Therapy can be extremely effective in making progress toward getting over these extremely negative roadblocks to recovery. Instead of ruminating on them, sorting them out, getting to the root, today I am just by-passing them. Deciding that they are of no use on my journey today has catapulted me into action. To me that is freedom.

Seems to me in some treatments and programs that a lot of negatives are focused upon only increasing shame and guilt. While in some cases this may be helpful to recognize the severity of a situation and responsibility for the damaging parts that are ours, I tend to agree that it’s all better to get over it all rather quickly. In this moment I feel like I just can’t have an albatross of regret hanging around my neck with a list of people I need to apologize to. These things will all come in their time. And one things that’s for sure, is that the world doesn’t slow down just because we decide to examine how awful we were in our past days of using. So here’s my point; don’t forget to live – TODAY. Catch your breath, feel better, clean up your act and get on with it. Do good things (you know what they are!) Be the change and make a difference. Today. NOW.