doggonecarl

I don't know why you struggle. I suspect you are more aware of the reasons than you think.

I know in my own struggles--thirty five years with drugs and alcohol, if I said I didn't know why I used, there was nothing to stop it from happening again--which deep inside my addict heart that's exactly what I wanted to happen.

And as many times as I said I was going to stop, deep inside I always had a "reason," or situation, that if it happened, I'd use. In the very beginning it took very little. A bad day, I'd relapse. But even here at my last current stint of clean and sober I've had to look deep inside to root out the reasons to relapse: lost love, death of a beloved pet, sickness or death of a loved one, zombie apocalypse, one disaster or another. As long as something "worse" than drinking or drugging happened, I could excuse my relapse. Recovery changed that.

It's finally dawned on me, the worse thing I can do is let go of my sobriety. Because no matter what exterior situation happens, if my addiction wins, I lose much, much more. I lose me, my essence, my integrity.

I know in your struggles it is easy to want to give up. However, struggling is no reason to give up. It's all the more reason to keep trying.