It’s actually sad in a way that when your mental and emotional life is in turmoil that you tend to attract people into your life that are in the same shape. It would be wonderful if you attracted healthy people who you could emulate; but you don’t. The only good thing about it is you can crab and whine and since they are doing the same thing; they put up with you. Luckily as you grow in your recovery and healing you do begin to attract more and more people who are healthy and stronger. You begin to look much more realistically at the relationships in your life and make better decisions about who you do and don’t want in your life. It sounds more painful then it is because you get to the point where you are ready to make those decisions. Being ready to make changes or decisions is so essential to obtaining and succeeding at reaching our goals in life. It’s the age old saying of ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.’ You can go into therapy, alcohol or drug rehab, quit smoking, whatever you want to do, but it isn’t going to work until you’re ready. No one can force you or even talk you into it. You can’t DO it for another person. You have to ready and be doing it for yourself before it will take effect and be as a life long change. There are times when you think ..”Hey , I think I’m ready and I do want to do this.” It isn’t going to happen until you have to need to do it. You have to have a need and a desire, almost a craving perhaps to do it. I’m not saying you will know that you’re desperate enough to do this but in your heart you will know when you’re ready. Listen to this, it doesn’t mean you might not make missteps or relapse at a point but that need and the health you’ve achieved before hand will make you realize you’re human and make mistakes. Instead of saying “I’m a loser this isn’t going to work” you’ll say “OK, I made a mistake now I need to put that behind me and continue with my recovery.” Understand the difference. It will make all the difference in your success. You need that groundwork of learning compassion and being ready before you start. The first thing any of us learn in any recovery is to stop beating ourselves up. One it is totally unproductive. Two, it just primes us for failure. Three, we’re human and we make mistakes and now we’re taking the steps to help ourselves. That is an accomplishment that we should hold dear and close to our hearts.
Kay L. Schlagel
Kay L. Schlagel
