One day at a time and all that…

We have much in common actually (I’m 42 yrs old, 12+ years sober) and I also am consumed with this need to fulfill my potential, despite the subtle message that sometimes hovers around recovery circles – as if success, abundance and personal fulfillment cannot possibly coexist with a life of acceptance, gratitude and humility.

Not only do we owe it to ourselves, but we owe it to everyone else in recovery who may be so full of self-doubt and shame they’re afraid to “put themselves out there” until inspired by someone who does.

Been reading you for years with the very very occasional random post. It’s funny that this language resonates with me now. I have 14 days sober and am in loads of meetings at the moment. It is indeed a grace that I haven’t lost more than I have.

Keep giving back, you have a lot of good and insightful things to say. I don’t always agree with you but I do understand your logic and respect your opinions.

Who knows if that voice can ever be silenced? But it is important to keep working toward it. Progress, not perfection, right?

Thanks, Sara. I won’t pretend to know what you’ve gone through, but I do understand the sense of being reborn, of having been given another chance — and the fear of wasting it.

I’ve also been worrying about the sense of complacency that I’ve been noticing – just because the Worst Thing I Could Imagine happened to me, it doesn’t mean I’m safe. But I do know now that I can do hard things, so I’m going to work that to its full potential. If I really had a gigantic brain tumor, I would have had an undignified and miserable road to dementia and death ahead of me, and very little of what I wanted out of life done and behind me.

What really clinches the faith in myself I’ve acquired is that NO ONE had any idea what was going to happen to me or what to do about it if something else did, but I still figured out a way to pick myself back up. For a while, I would say things about how I wish I really did have cancer and die, because other people have some experience with that kind of thing, and could have some idea of what I was going through.

I still have not been able to get in contact with anyone who’s had a somewhat similar experience to mine, and this is the first time I’ve ever had the teenaged feeling of “Nobody understands me!” My husband is very supportive, but he is having a completely different experience than I am, so there’s only so much he can understand. This recovery has been a lot longer than most anyone predicted it would be (I had to take my time to get to know the ins and outs of my condition, and practice at being a Patient). I’m not even remotely glad I had this experience, but can recognize that some good things have come from it, and I’ll take what I can get.

Please forgive this self-centered rant – I think it’s relevant, and writing it has been really cathartic. It’s so great to have some feeling of identity with a sort of rebirth narrative.