Addicts and alcoholics are great at coming up with excuses about why they are the way they are.
Some of them blame their addiction on their upbringing. They say they had a terrible childhood, where they were abused and mistreated by their parents. Others might say that they are alcoholics or addicts because their father or mother used drugs and alcohol.
Still others say that they suffered trauma in their life that caused them to start using. Maybe a loved one passed away. Maybe they were in an accident or assaulted.
I'm bringing this up as a topic today because I was thinking about my own experiences that I used when I was explaining to counselors why I was like I was. What I learned as I grew up is that counselors, social workers, doctors, and others in the helping professions are very sympathetic and compassionate people as a general rule. Sometimes they would even write me a prescription. They would listen to my excuses and nod their head in sympathy.
But the reality with all of us is this: we are not going to change our lives until we accept complete responsibility for who and what we are today. True, many bad things happen to all of us at some point in our lives – though that not always the case. The problem with excuses is that it leaves us sitting exactly where we are at this point in time. Until we recognize that we are participants in our problem we are never going to change.
And so if bad things did.happen to us, it provides us with a plausible excuse for what we are doing to ourselves. But that really resides only in our minds. I always had an excuse for why I was poisoning myself with heroin and alcohol.
Most of us ended up in treatment or recovery because everyone got tired of us and stopped listening to our sorry excuses about why we are the way we are. Even the most enabling parents or friends eventually become tired of our same old lame excuses and tell us to leave. The first few times that happened to me it left a burning hole in my heart.
But eventually, when I had enough pain, I recognized the truth in what they said and decided that I needed to get sober.
And that's what I did over 32 years ago.
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