Recovery Doesn’t Come With A Directions

September 6. I’m still searing a little from the sting of yesterdays realization but trying to let it go. The competition after all is only with myself, but my standards are still high. And clearly the mental toughness to handle this challenge is for real.

Lucky for me I have my DH to help me get back on track with the right amount of honesty and support.

He has helped me to see the progress I have made thus far and has even offered to do the challenge with me.

The old saying really is true, nothing worth doing is easy. Never believed that more in my life.

Reminds me of when I was a young mom trying to do all the things for all the people. I loved those little guys, man were they cute and so sweet. But after I had my son the overwhelm became quite real.

I was sober, had been for a few years now but I really needed help and had too much pride or not enough courage to ask. I didn’t even really know what I needed but I knew it was something.

I can look back now and see the answers were fairly simple. I was trying to do and be too many things and perfectly. The expectations I had for myself as a woman and a mom were completely unrealistic for my lifestyle yet I continued to maintain them.

There was no internal peace or comfort with myself, only doubt, always questioning my decisions, feeling incapable of doing the right things. I had been using the twelve step program pretty well, I understood it logically and had put the principles in place in my life.

But the longer I stayed sober the deeper I got into the pit of despair.

I remember struggling in my relationships at that time. I was comparing myself to others all the time and believing that I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have the confidence to speak up about my opinions or desires.

When the pain was great enough, when I reached that desperation point and asked for help, that’s when everything changed. And the funny thing is and answers were there the whole time, I just didn’t understand how to put them in place.

I needed an instruction manual.

Actually I needed someone to spoon feed me the instructions to get out of my own mess and begin building the life of my desires, becoming the women I was created to be. And that’s exactly what happened over the next few years!

I’m grateful for every sober bottom I have had, or every challenge I have faced, for every failure along the way. This is how we learn. Maybe you are sober but lack the peace on the inside like I did. Maybe all you need is the instruction manual.

Instead of quitting, or staying in the pain, reach out. Find someone who has the instructions for the life you want and ask them about it.

Xo,

Shelby