- Alcohol
- Faith
I think it is important to note one thing in the telling of a story of recovery. At the point when the story is told, it is only as current as the latest chapter that has been written. New chapters are in a constant state of being written and, although the victories are many, the story never really ends on this side of heaven. That doesn’t mean the story is sad or discouraging. It can, and often does, mean just the opposite. But it still isn’t finished.
The most recent chapter in my own story is about freedom, restoration and living cleanly with no more secrets. I have heard it said many times, “We are only as sick as our secrets.” In the preceding six years, I have confirmed that piece of wisdom.
The root of my own series of issues, which began somewhere around eight years old, was raging codependency and a negative sense of self-worth. For a myriad of reasons, I grew up in a constant state of performing. I had to be something, anything that I thought would gain me love and affirmation from people who were supposed to just give those things. I occasionally found the right deeds or words. But even then, the worth I felt was only fleeting at best. I carried this, in its perfected form, well into adulthood. I carried with it a sexual addiction, an ability to drink myself stupid and an act that would win me many Academy Awards. It wasn’t until the age of 46 that the act, the affairs, the lies, the secrets and the basketful of masks I wore came crashing down like a pile of plates.
Enough was finally enough. I entered a recovery program, as well as attended group meetings and wandered one Sunday morning into a little church near my home. I cried seemingly nonstop for a year. I spent $1250 for four days at an intensive center for sex addictions, many hours of counseling and many foolish mistakes and detours. I still thought I knew what I was doing and what I needed to do to be healed. I was still acting.
The truth is, without going into detail, it has only been in the last year and a half of my story that humility sunk in. It finally sunk in that I can really only be a victim once. After that, I am a conspirator. There were many reasons why I learned to cope in some really rotten ways, but the truth is that everything that’s been done to me as an adult, no matter how many other people I could find to blame, I did to myself. I made the early choices to place myself on the path to destruction and continued dysfunction. I chose my secrets and lies. Even if I had really bad things happen to me, I made the original choice to be where I could have bad things happen to me and then I often chose to stay there, beating dead horses to prove I was worth something. It never worked and it never will.
What does work is humility. What worked for me was to finally realize that my very best thinking had landed me exactly where I was. I’m not sure why being right matters so much to us humans, but for me, it has become really overrated. It was not until I realized that I should admit how wrong I was that my life started to change. I learned that confession and repentance were the tools that eventually took me off the dangerous road of secrets and lies. Sure, there were a few people who judged and spoke about me, but they were few. In truth, most people actually could relate. Those who gossiped and shunned me most likely related to me even more. They just hadn’t realized it yet.
The freedom I live in now is a freedom that stems from living open and in the light of having nothing more to hide. It feels like taking large bags of cement that I had been carrying, dropping them to the floor and walking away from them. It was a feeling of dropping the unnecessary ballast that kept me anchored like heavy chains to the past and to the tapes that played nonstop in my mind.
I will admit that it took a while for me to learn to stop picking some of it up now and then. But it never took long to feel that weight again and it became easier each time to leave it there and move on.
Today, I have found acceptance, forgiveness and true love for just being exactly who I am. In April, I plan to be married to a lady I knew throughout this period of my recovery story. I just didn’t realize she was traveling the same journey as me the whole time. We became better friends over the last year and best friends in the last nine months. We just simply like each other, mistakes and all. It makes me smile. Many things make me smile now, such as my children, my hobbies, my family and my life. The bumps in the road are now just bumps, not drama filled tragedies that I feel the need to fix. They are just life. This life is the only one I have on this side and I will not waste any more of it.
Be Blessed. Never quit.