It wasn’t hard to get sober.
I mean all you’ve really gotta do in order to be physically sober is NOT get high, drunk, or generally partake in things that alter your mind or body.
Minus the physical withdrawal (which don’t get me wrong, can be hell) it’s a kinda simple act of physically abstaining, right?
No, the real work when I got clean was examining all the things that made me need to escape my life in the first place:
- Low self-esteem
- Unresolved grief and trauma
- Judgments on myself and others
- Guilt from my actions – both recent and long past
- Discomfort of wearing a mask (or ten) in order to get through life
- Shame…so much shame
The spin cycle of all the things listed above became this crazy loop:
I hated myself and wanted to change my life, but when I allowed reality to surface (sober) I was overwhelmed with shame, grief, and hopelessness— the same feelings that made numbing out seem so necessary in the first place.
It was like coming up for air only to be pummeled by a wave that made me wish I was dead—so back underwater I went.
Drugs and alcohol were like a toxic scuba tank – and figuring out how to just let that wave pummel me in order to eventually breathe real air again was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
But I did it. I allowed myself to get destroyed so that I could have something new.
I’m willing to bet that you’ve done big, hard, things too.
Maybe you lost someone you didn’t think you could live without.
Maybe the job you thought you’d have forever laid you off.
Maybe you changed your body, went back to school, or persisted through a Dark Night of the Soul.
Whatever it was, when you’ve done a big hard thing – something that you previously didn’t think possible—it makes you realize JUST HOW MUCH you can do.
You realize that’s it’s possible to completely change as a person– to have multiple lifetimes with only birthday.
Whether your “big hard thing” happened TO you or was created BY you – you’ve already done and lived through SO much.
Which begs the question…
What else can you live through?
Not just nasty - tough too. Like you.
Where can you choose to struggle, squirm, or generally writhe with discomfort in order to get things you want in life?
When I realized that being made of tough stuff meant that I could change other things: things like the way I show up in my relationships, my job, the way I treat my body, how much money I made, and (at the foundation of it) all the thoughts that fill my brain and dictate my entire life – I realized I had the keys to the kingdom.
We all do.
Because you’re made of tough stuff too.
Your thoughts create your entire life too.
What hard thing will you choose to do because you want it?
What parts of yourself are you willing to destroy so that you can have the life that’s waiting for you?
Xo,
Melissa