Reverse the negative - you are the one who keeps getting up again, not the one who keeps falling...
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Big City
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Reverse the negative - you are the one who keeps getting up again, not the one who keeps falling...
Looking back at my old posts, reflecting at this autumnal time of year, seeing all the people here struggling, I was thinking how it may be the real truth that, rather than a person who kept failing time and time again to get sober, I was really a person who kept trying time and time again to get sober.
It's a simple inflection. I don't change the facts on the ground. It took me a while to finally get here. I lost things, blew chances, wasted part and parcel of what I was given. And yet here I am, pretty ok, with a decent chance to take care of some things the right way, in my time left around these parts.
And now that I am sober I can treat myself with some kindness and respect. Now that I can look back at who I was and who I was trying to be with some sympathy and objectivity - the truth is that, even though I messed up a lot, I had something in me that kept bringing me back to SR, that kept driving me to want to be sober, again and again.
I hope that those of you who are struggling now can see this in yourselves. I think it's the truth, or at least one truth. And a valuable one. We are here because we want something better, for ourselves, our families, our souls, psyches, whatever. Yeah our knees are scuffed, pockets have holes in them and we've been to the principal's office a few too many times - but maybe we are also the people with some kind of indomitable spirit inside. There is something that brings us here. Something that knows there's a better way to live, and wants that way, deeply. Tapping into that part of who I am, that person who wanted to get better, and seeing that in me, even the old me as I struggled for so many years, gives me peace for the past and hope for the future.
Keep choppin wood and carrying the water friends. Happy Sunday.
It's a simple inflection. I don't change the facts on the ground. It took me a while to finally get here. I lost things, blew chances, wasted part and parcel of what I was given. And yet here I am, pretty ok, with a decent chance to take care of some things the right way, in my time left around these parts.
And now that I am sober I can treat myself with some kindness and respect. Now that I can look back at who I was and who I was trying to be with some sympathy and objectivity - the truth is that, even though I messed up a lot, I had something in me that kept bringing me back to SR, that kept driving me to want to be sober, again and again.
I hope that those of you who are struggling now can see this in yourselves. I think it's the truth, or at least one truth. And a valuable one. We are here because we want something better, for ourselves, our families, our souls, psyches, whatever. Yeah our knees are scuffed, pockets have holes in them and we've been to the principal's office a few too many times - but maybe we are also the people with some kind of indomitable spirit inside. There is something that brings us here. Something that knows there's a better way to live, and wants that way, deeply. Tapping into that part of who I am, that person who wanted to get better, and seeing that in me, even the old me as I struggled for so many years, gives me peace for the past and hope for the future.
Keep choppin wood and carrying the water friends. Happy Sunday.
love this. Telling it to myself right now.
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Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: Europe
Posts: 116
Great Post on a so true thought. Same here. Thanks for posting.
I take pride in my failings, because I do not expect from myself to just decide one day to cut alcohol and manage that, because that is just not realistic expectiation. It's a 20 year+ habit that you need to relearn with information and efforts. I would even stretch this to "getting better as the last attempt" is great, especially when you go by yourself but not by therapy or guided.
It was also some trial and error for me, but each time I would learn from fails, which makes me more and more save to know how to approach next time. But you have keep believing in yourself.
I would as go as far as to say, even in the case I would slip, I know exactly how to bounce back quick - because I learned how to guide myself out of alcohol, exactly becaus of these fails.
I take pride in my failings, because I do not expect from myself to just decide one day to cut alcohol and manage that, because that is just not realistic expectiation. It's a 20 year+ habit that you need to relearn with information and efforts. I would even stretch this to "getting better as the last attempt" is great, especially when you go by yourself but not by therapy or guided.
It was also some trial and error for me, but each time I would learn from fails, which makes me more and more save to know how to approach next time. But you have keep believing in yourself.
I would as go as far as to say, even in the case I would slip, I know exactly how to bounce back quick - because I learned how to guide myself out of alcohol, exactly becaus of these fails.
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