Living in the Moment

I periodically meet people in recovery who beat themselves up because they believe they "wasted" a lot of years drinking and drugging.  Even though they've been sober for a few years they do this because of the time they devoted to drinking or drugging.  Many spent years.

While I understand where they're coming from - because I've shared some of those feelings myself - I don't think there is such a thing as wasted time.  I think that the experiences that led us to using, and the path we took to get into recovery, are part of our education so we are able to have the life we have today.

For those of us who used for years, we went through many rough experiences before we decided to change.  Some of us went to jail or prison or both.  Others had families that stopped supporting them - and sent them on their way.  Others were divorced.  Some of us impacted our health.  Myself, I had hepatitis C for nearly 30 years before science came up with a cure.

But once we go through the early struggles of learning to live sober we come to realize that some of the tough times we faced in our addiction made us stronger and more resilient people.  Today I'm able to look back at those who didn't survive their addictions; instead they stayed with them until they overdosed or became handicapped.

If we look around us we can always find others who didn't make it and feel good that we did.  When we look at our lives this way, we can find a reason to live in gratitude.

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