Recovery Month – Day 11 – Truth or Illusion?

The short term pain of accepting a truth is better than the long term pain of believing an illusion.

— Unknown —

September is National Recovery Month.

The focus of my blogs throughout the month of September will be on addiction and its life destroying tendencies. The writings derive from my own personal experiences of battling addiction and living a life of recovery.

These specific writings are focused on the ACT acronym.

ACT leads to sobriety…

A – Acknowledge you have a problem and you are powerless over it and you need help.

– Connect with a power greater than you and people who have solutions that will help you conquer your problem.

T – Take positive, recovery-oriented action every day.

From September 1 through the 7th, I wrote about the importance of Acknowledging there is a problem and the next several days I will be writing about the importance of Connect.


Today’s writing is a continuation from yesterday (Sept. 10).


Up to this point, in my process of trying to get help for my problem, I had made two key connections and neither of them gave me the answer I was looking for…another definition of insanity.

On the ride home from meeting with Bob #2, I didn’t say a word. I was very angry, confused and simply blown away at the fact that I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to escape this prison cell I had built.

Normal twenty-eight year old dads are focused on their spouse and their kids. But me, I was obsessed with proving to the world I could whip my addiction on my own.

Upon arriving home I asked Lori if she would take control of my pills and only give them to me at certain times of the day. This would allow me to slowly taper off of them. The look on her face told me I had reached another level of craziness. She didn’t say it, but I could tell she was done with helping me kick my addiction.

What I haven’t shared up until this point is the fact our second son Jordan was born with severe disabilities and was totally dependent upon on us (Lori) for his survival. In essence, my wife was caring for two people with severe disabilities.

It hurts me to think what I put her through. I share my story with others not to glorify old wounds but to hopefully help others find healing from their addiction much quicker than I did. The intent of addiction is to destroy the addict and everyone in it’s path especially those closest to the addict.


As the opening quote said, I knew the truth but I was not willing to accept it…I was holding on to an illusion that wanted to destroy me.

This story continues tomorrow…as I finally begin the journey of facing the truth through a key Connection.


Regardless of whether or not we are an addict or an alcoholic there are times in our lives where we tend to deny the truth which surrounds us. Most of the time we deny it in order to avoid the pain associated with facing it.

It could be troubles in a relationship, a job, a family member etc…

What challenges are you not facing truthfully?

Living in an illusion is not the way God wired us to live.

Proverbs 14:18, “Foolish dreamers live in a world of illusion, wise realists plant their feet firmly on the ground.” (The Message)

P.E.A.C.E.

Jay@EagleLaunch.com

 

 

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