Restoration
A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of listening to a great speaker give a presentation. Her presentation was excellent and had many insightful points, but one point stuck out to me. She talked about the progression of her addiction and how it changed her. The most powerful part of her 90-minute presentation, in my eyes, was when she said, “The more I used, the more I chipped away at who I am. I was willing to sacrifice things about myself and my life for my disease.” That one statement said so much in my eyes.
When I heard her statement, it didn’t seem so powerful to me because she was the first person who I had ever encountered or heard of who had compromised her morals in addiction. That was exactly the opposite of why I felt it was such a terrific statement! I know many, many, people who could say the same thing. When I heard this statement, I thought of things that are most dear to people. Things like their faith, their families, their friends, and their jobs. These are huge things to sacrifice for an addiction, and most people don’t realize it when they’re actually sacrificing them. They don’t have to completely quit going to church, quit praying, leave their families, or quit their jobs to sacrifice it. They just give less of themselves to those dear things because they are giving more of themselves to whatever the addiction may be. I can speak from first-hand experience about this. I never gave up my faith, my family, or my job, but I still feel that I sacrificed them all when I was drinking. I didn’t reach the point where I gave up on any of them and don’t know if I ever would. However, I did give less of myself and didn’t give the best of myself to all of those things at times, even though they ranked one, two, and three on my list of priorities. The problem wasn’t my ranking system for my priorities, but the actual application of prioritizing my actions to align with those priorities. I feel this is a common problem for people battling an addiction. It even reaches the point where ones priorities are compromised so much that they change and you see the addict becoming less than what he was before.
I’m sure we can all give personal accounts of someone we know whose life spiraled more and more out of control until it changed the way we saw this person. His actions weren’t the actions of the person we once knew and loved, but there is a bright spot. The bright spot for me in all of this is the restoration that I have seen in people that brings them back to being the same person or an even better person than they were before. This restoration is through recovery in some form or fashion. It can be through a church, treatment facility, 12-step program, small group, therapist, or even sheer will. This restoration takes a person who has been through tough times and turns him into a person who has learned from his mistakes and now works tirelessly to stand in line with those priorities. This person might have had part of himself chipped away, but he has started the healing process and is now growing to become a fuller and better person than ever before. I encourage anyone who has noticed himself, his morals, or his priorities being chipped away to seek a way out through some course of restoration.
Do you have a story of someone who has allowed himself to sacrifice important things in his life for an addiction and has made a turn for the better to now leading a fuller and more complete life? Please share…