Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person you are using something or somebody to cover up your own pain. – Eckhart /Tolle
Ironically, when we begin to heal, we also start to feel sad and devastated – because we recognize how much we’ve lost, how badly certain people have failed us, what the younger version of us needed and actually deserved. Healing involves healthy grieving, no way around it.
We also start feeling the devastation of the consequences of our actions while intoxicated, the damage we have created and the pain we inflicted on the people around us, especially the people we love, it is impossible to overlook or avoid that.
Healing is not going to feel magical or beautiful. Real healing is hard, challenging, and exhausting at times.
Don’t try and make it into anything other than what it is. Be there for yourself with compassion and without judgment. And allow yourself some grace.
Recovery can feel like walking a tight rope, with every step that you take the rope will start to swing from side to side with the change, let it settle before you take the next step.
You’re in rehab, the rope is swinging, calm yourself, take a deep breath, it’s a long road. You finished the program, and you are moving back home or to a halfway house, it’s a big step, the rope is swinging again, quiet your nerves, take your time, let the rope rest before the next step.
Don’t hurry trying to “sort out” your life, there might be lots that needs to be fixed and mended, but it can’t all happen right now. Relationships will take time to heal, financial issues will need to be resolved slowly over time, don’t rush – you are going to crash. Remember it’s a tight rope and its swinging.
Small steps will get you there, the miracle of recovery will bring all of it back and more than you have ever expected, but on its own timeline, not yours. Just stay sober!
