November 20 (74)

”It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Chuck Palahniuk

Undertaking the process of recovery has meant starting over in many aspects of my life. I did not lose quite everything, but more than enough to have regrets of what could have been different, what I might have saved if I had found the program sooner. I struggle with letting go of things that are too damaged and beyond my ability to repair. There are many places where I have had to resign myself that, at least for now, there is little more that I can do. It takes two willing parties to make a relationship work and grow and I cannot hold a string in the air all by myself. The other loss I am experiencing is the loss of my addict. I have to grieve the departure of that part of myself. Yet in order to move in a different direction I needed to put that aspect of me to rest. It’s a sign of maturity and of accepting a different way of living. This has happened in writing a good-bye letter. It also has come through exercises of reconciliation with my inner child who was forced to deal with adult issues for too many years. My child-like personality is now freer to simply be and play as I have committed to accept responsibility for all the adult situations I encounter.

Affirmation I am recognizing that in many ways I have to lose things from the past in order to be free to gain new things in the present.