A Letter to My 10-Year-Old Self from a Person in Recovery
You’ve spent the last year or your life getting sober and you’ve worked so damn hard to get there too. The benefit of peer groups for people affected by addiction and alcoholism vastly outweighs any academic debate on terminology. Have you ever heard the phrase “you can’t pour from an empty cup”? This is why self-love matters so much.
You will have to go treatment more than once. This is going to take you a minute to figure out. I know you don’t quite know why your life is the way it is or why you are using and drinking like you are. I know that you think if you just stop everything life will get better. I am here to tell you when life doesn’t get better because you simply put the stuff down; you are going to mess up. You are smart, and you are insightful. You are going to learn from every screw up. You in all reality will make no mistakes because you learn from every one of them. You do make it out onto the other side.
Counterintuitive Secrets for a Happy Relationship
I am close with my family again. And the obsession is gone; I don’t miss you. And I don’t blame you either anymore. I’m responsible for my own behavior now. I know I’ll never completely forget my first love – no one ever really does. You seduced me with the idea that I was free of all prejudices and that “society” was trying to brainwash me. Abandoning my career goals, I turned to petty crimes. Abandoning friendship, I turned to exploiting others. No longer brainwashed by society, I hardly realized how I was being brainwashed by you.
Depression is an addiction to self-pity. Live in God’s #Love Letter to you, pray in the spirit…and you will #rejoice with JOY UNSPEAKABLE…
— reJOYable (@rejoyable) July 18, 2014
In time, the scales will balance and you will experience more joy than pain. But for now, you must travel the difficult path and find the will to survive. You will become stronger each time you choose to steer away from that dangerous and tempting path at the fork in the road. It may be hard to see because the path to recovery is difficult. But please know you are not walking alone – hands of help are reaching out to you with your every step. Every day, I have unfulfilled wants that are not centered on anyone else. It may seem selfish, but I believe that the center of one’s being can only revolve around oneself. I want things, I want different feelings, I want changes in others, I want, I want, I want. I believe that desire is no different for anyone – for people with addiction and for those without. As a person who has never struggled with drug or alcohol addiction, I can only speak from that perspective.
A Goodbye Letter to My Addiction
Your negativity has served you well — served to protect you from your fear of taking a risk- of believing in yourself. It is time to take back control of your life and create the happiness you deserve and you want. You must stop giving so much power to others over your self-esteem. Especially to a man who you have allowed inside of your heart and who has betrayed you and hurt you beyond your wildest imagination. Someone you trusted with your life burned you very badly. Now you feel irrepairable- you WANT to find your anger and step out of the fear and insecurity. You are finding it difficult to focus on yourself and accept the reality that you CAN heal and that you CAN learn to love yourself- something that seems so foreign. Enjoying a glass of wine or a happy hour visit with friends. However, exercising moderation and learning how to control your social anxiety in healthier ways will save you so much time, energy and money.
Addiction kills… Letter to My Younger Self The Players’ Tribune @playerstribune http://t.co/erQhJYTNjS
— Dan Macadam (@danmacadam) April 12, 2015
I’m taking enormous strides in my life. I realized how good life could be. Sure, there were times when I missed you when I felt weak or bored without you, but I was happy. I didn’t even look at you the whole time I was there. I knew it wouldn’t be good to talk to you. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Alyssa who is the National Director of Digital Marketing, joined the Banyan team in 2016, bringing her five-plus years of experience.
A Goodbye Letter To My Addiction
There is a saying that the hardest thing to do in life is to say goodbye. This includes all relationships, including my relationship with you. We have been through a lot together. This started off with plenty of happy moments, like the first time I experienced getting high or drunk. There came a point where I thought I would never have to part with you. I never thought you would like. Now, it is time to say goodbye. You are strong – you just haven’t realized that yet – I know the women you will become because I am her. You will work hard with the tools you learned at Remuda but you will fall sometimes. Don’t beat yourself up – Keep on trying – never giving up.
What are the first signs of addiction?
- lack of control, or inability to stay away from a substance or behavior.
- decreased socialization, like abandoning commitments or ignoring relationships.
- ignoring risk factors, like sharing needles despite potential consequences.
Eventually, you took everything away from me. You told me that as long as I let you control everything in my life, everything would be okay. It has become clear that everything is not okay. In order for things to get better, I need to let you go. The worldview of anyone sitting at Sober House their rock bottom paints a bleak and understandably cynical outlook. Usually, the circumstances surrounding this state of mind involve potentially trauma-inducing elements. Keeping that in mind, the specifics of people and places matter less than the mental or emotional details.
You will, very sadly, remain in the hell of addiction until you realize you don’t have the power to overcome it, admit to yourself you can’t do it, and seek help. My name is Greg, and I celebrate recovery from addiction to pain pills. That doesn’t mean I consider myself to “have arrived.” That doesn’t mean that I have it all together. That doesn’t mean that I consider myself beyond temptation. That means that I didn’t use today. As I approach a year of sobriety , I need to share a few things.
You must realize that you are the only one who controls how you think, feel, what you do and how YOU heal. You will make some of your best friends after you quit the drinking life and throw all your energy into bettering yourself. You will also discover a love of writing that will burgeon into a lucrative side hustle—something you might not addiction letter to self have had if you kept hitting the bottle every night. Exercising moderation and learning how to control your social anxiety in healthier ways will save you so much time, energy and money. As you build out your social life, you will begin to crave alcohol as a crutch. I see your struggles with being in recovery, with more pain than joy.
Instead, the suggestion is to stop living a life focused on someone else’s well-being. These programs advocate detachment with love — that is, to put love and caring at the forefront of the relationship, but without losing oneself in the process. Begin your letter with kind words of appreciation. Look at how far you’ve come and all you’ve accomplished.