I'm Responsible

“Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.”  Erica Jong.

The idea that I’m responsible for my life was a first step toward getting sober. For years I’d played over and over in my head a version of the “Somebody done somebody wrong song.”

And it was true. I was done wrong in my childhood. I had someone to blame for my screwed up life.  I was severely abused at the hands of my father. So much so that the Sheriff’s Department  would come to the school to make deals for me to testify against my father. But fear held me back.

The abuse was a great excuse to spend years getting drunk and high – activities which kept me in jail for years at a time. Therapists would commiserate with me because of my terrible childhood and understand why I abused drugs and alcohol. However, their sympathy didn’t help me get clean.

The one thing that helped me change was telling myself I was responsible and to stop using my past as an excuse. Sure, bad things happen to us all.  But should we let them kill us today?

 When I accepted that I was responsible, then I began to live the life I enjoy today.