HOPE MONTH: DAY 23: “You couldn’t erase the past. You couldn’t even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”― Ann Brashares
This quote could easily be used for Step 9 or 10. But I like it here because I did not know that I wanted to make things right when I first got into recovery. I think that, like most addicts who are new to the whole idea, I was shocked and horrified when reading the steps…especially Steps 4 and 9. Oh HELL NO!
Haha…I did, however, like the idea of a more satisfying way of cleaning up my messes than just saying I was sorry, or as a kid raised in Catholicism, going to confession. Although I did not really understand the difference for a long time.
I did feel hopeful about turning my life into something that felt better than it did when I got here. I loved the fact that others met me in meetings and were hopeful on my behalf. That had not happened in a long time. Everyone who knew me knew what a train wreck I was on my way here, no doubt about it. They were NOT hopeful that I could be different than I was, or that I wanted to be. I was not sure myself.
But hope is a wonderful thing. I got it from the recovering people I met. I identified with their horrible lives prior to recovery and began to believe it might just happen for me, too. I did not want to change my past, but I really wanted to change my right now and my future. And look, it happened! Wow!
Dolphin Hug 