Life is very interesting…in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. — Drew Barrymore
In the life of recovery I would venture to say that most of our greatest pains and challenges become our strengths. Without a doubt the pain of addiction converts into the joy of living when we recover. But that is not the only pains we grow from in recovery. First let me dispel a LIE, the lie that has the ability to send us all into the tailspin of “I did it again”.
What is the LIE? Simply put, “we should always learn from our mistakes”. Our negative self talk volume increases when we make the same mistake more than once. The truth of the matter is this, we will make mistakes and sometimes the same mistakes more than once until we make the decision to change the behavior. But and this is the big but, sometimes we change the behavior only to revert back to the behavior again in the future.
Does this make us impossible? Are we broken? Is there something wrong with us? The answer is No, No, No… It is human behavior, we must give ourselves a break. Utilization of the Tenth Step is a great tool to minimize reverting back to the behavior we want to change. But it is not necessarily a permanent fix. We are human and we make mistakes, sometimes the same ones over again.
The LIE is dangerous because it weakens us. It is divisive. It strengthens the negative self talk and that can be dangerous for an addict! Combat the LIE with the truth! So what is the strength? It is our ability to overcome adversity, to recognize when we are wrong and promptly admit it, it is intuitively knowing how to handle situations that used to baffle us and more… Life is good!
Go, Go, Go…
Dan 🙂