This just in! A Breaking News Story! A New Story!

Another relapse!  She declined help again!  He's on the phone screaming at me that it's all my fault, again!  The worry never ends!  I feel helpless, alone, scared!  Is this your breaking news story over and over?  

That story is exhausting, and unfortunately real.  Yes the relapses happen, declining help happens, screaming, blaming, yes it all happens.  We're talking addiction. It happens because the disease of addiction changes the way the circuitry of the brain operates and those behaviors follow.  It's all part of denial (another symptom of addiction), and denial is the very thing that addiction needs to thrive!

Here's the thing though, denial comes with story after story after story.  So what story do you tell yourself?  This will never end?  I can't help?  I'm helpless?  I'm losing them?

Right there, it's right there where you'll lose the greater truths and move right into the lie, the quiet, subtle and powerful lie that brings you into unconscious denial:   denying that you have the ability to re-write parts of this story, anytime!  

It's all too easy to repeatedly tell the stories of all the horror we experience.  We're invited to do that, it's what we do, it's how we're connecting, it's how we're venting, it's how we feel understood.  But, when we do this almost exclusively, we lose the awareness that we can actually tell a story of recovery, that we are a story of recovery, that we can re-connect to inner peace, we can contribute to healing and recovery (our own and our loved one's), we can learn skills of recovery and communication, and we can write new stories for our life, and live our love in ways that meet the truest and deepest needs of addiction. 

This just in!  This is the breaking news story in each day!  You can write a new story!  

How might a new story look for you? How can you create a new story, just for a few moments?  Because a few moments leads to a half day, leads to many many moments in a whole day, leads to many days thereafter.  Join me here.

Let's take this concept of feeling helpless.  Are you completely sure that when you're believing you're helpless, that that's it, that's all there is? How can that be?  Here's how I move from denial to help-full.  How is this part my story, part of your story too?

I help me when I develop and execute a plan for my self-care and my own recovery, when I choose and do my peace practices, when I get really clear and practice some new skills to connect and communicate - first with my God, then myself, and it is then that it can flow out and into how I connect and communicate with anyone.  I am help-full when I notice how fear has me time traveling to the past and future and bring it right back into the present day, when I don't lose myself, when I don't stay on the phone giving yet another opportunity for my loved one to experience himself in denial and shame by ranting at me and blaming me, when I take care of what is mine to take care of and find the support to help me do that, when I seek understanding, compassion, and forgiveness for myself and others.  I am help-full when I question any thought that takes me away from the peace and love I have been created to be and to share, when I align with God and not try to be God, assuming I know how the world should spin (when clearly it's not spinning that way!), and when I realize there are just going to be a lot of things that surpass my understanding, and move on.  I am help-full when I do all these things.  Then, I get inspired to connect with others in ways that are helpful, in  ways that come from clarity, discernment and choices, choices that might sometimes be hard to deliver, sometimes quite imperfect, but still helping towards healing and recovery.  Yes, that feels sooooo much better, better because it is the truth.  Helpless or able to be help-full? 

We each have great purpose, a great purpose in Recovery.  It surely lights the way and lights up the path for any other to walk it.  

That's a new story, a great story!  And that's a new story worthy of every day.  It's a new story I want to share with my loved ones by choosing it so I can be it. It's the story of love, of empowered love for healing and for change.  And I can't do it alone!  We are not going to do this work of recovery alone.

What I do know is that God inspired this for me, I only need to choose it, be imperfect, try my best, and keep reaching out for support, learning, healing and growth.  Thankfully, none of us are alone there either.  Drugs are not the whole story! Drugs don't win here.  Love does! 

This is Recovery Month.  This new story is inspired and initiated by anyone who wants it and chooses it.  I do believe we all need it!  And this is the new story for over 20 million people in Recovery.  Breathe that in.  Each of us are part of that story too!

Why not have every month, every day be one of Recovery? Make it a new moment, a new day, a new choice, a new effort, a new you, a new story.   

From my heart to yours, with love and gratitude.

Joanne