“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford
Most of us look at failure the wrong way. To be honest it truly stinks to fail, trust me I have done enough failing for all of us. Especially when I fail due to my own poor choices or my actions are not intense enough to cause the blisters! Failure is not fatal, yet it does feel that way.
Some years ago someone made the observation that relapse is part of recovery. Well of course that is a half truth. For some folks they do relapse, in fact for this guy my first attempt at recovery lead me on an eight year journey of ups and downs. My goal was not to remain abstinent, my goal was to stop the hurting, stay out of prison, keep my family from driving me crazy and other reasons. I absolutely count that as part of my recovery history. However, the truth is I did not commit to abstinence or recovery.
The greatest challenge we face with this thought process is it puts a reservation in the back of our heads. The truth is we can fail in life, we can make mistakes in our recovery and we do not need to relapse. We must stop telling ourselves that any failure is fatal. If we make a mistake we need to get up, dust off, admit the challenge, amend the action, and learn from it. Drinking or drugging will only make it worse!
Go, Go, Go…
Dan 🙂