Many addicts make themselves unhappy by looking back at what they've lost. But most of the things they think they lost are really things they gave away to their addictions.
A friend told me one time that he lost his wife because of his drinking. My response was "no your wife lost you because of your drinking." The only reason I could tell him that with such conviction is because I was kind of like him at one time. I used to think I lost marriages, jobs, properties, even my freedom, because of my heroin and alcohol addictions. But the reality is that I didn't lose anything. I gave it all away in the pursuit of pleasure, trying to recapture the euphoria of that first high.
Like it or not, we must learn to live in the present moment, relishing the gift of the time that we still have left after all we put ourselves through. For the fact that we survived our addictions and the consequences of our addictions is truly a miracle.
But many times I speak with addicts who are depressed because they no longer have what they once had. They might've had a nice home. A wife who cared about them. Children who loved them. A great job or even their own business. In other words, they were living the American dream.
Then they woke up after a few years of pursuing their addictions and it all was gone. And even though they've been sober a year or longer they spend a lot of time reflecting upon what they let slip through their fingers.
And that's a sad place to be because they're missing this valuable present moment. For even though it's an old cliché, this moment is the beginning of the remainder of our lives. And to waste it excavating through the wreckage of our past is to miss the essence of our lives.
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