There IS Hope - Never Give Up!

When we are in our addiction..we believe that we are alright. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are doing fine. We have our drink or drug of choice & the world seems surmountable. But whats really going on with us is, we are headed for a "head on collision" with life. We WILL hit bottom at some point. Hopefully it won't be at the medical examiners office. If we're lucky we will have a rude awakening...in jail. Or perhaps with a friend who will have the courage & love for us to tell us we need to STOP KILLING OURSELVES! If we're sick enough of being sick, we'll listen, get help & change our lifestyle. We will realize that we can exist without our addiction. We will learn to overcome the triggers & cravings that can cause us to relaspe. We will see that we were so wrong about how we saw our lives & we will do all we can to make it better & to make ammends for all the wrong we did to our loved ones & others. Eventually as life happens...we will have the opportunity to help someone else that is walking the same path we just walked. We will reach out to help them. And once we've helped them & we see that our efforts were not in vain..at that moment we'll realize just how fortunate we are to have come through the haze of our addiction. There is always hope! Never give up!  

The One Thing.....

Something that I learned about making changes for the better was, I had to gain a positive attitude about my life and about myself. Believe me it wasn't as easy as it sounds. I felt as though I had the weight of the world on my shoulders...and in a way I did.  I was a single parent for a long time and I had to be the one that paid the bills and brought home the food.  I know that was the reason I never actually went off the deep end.
You'd think that would have been enough to stop myself, but it wasn't.
Even though I still had an addiction, of one kind or another,  I was able to function and keep up on the bills.

Of course I can't take all the credit here...with the help I received from human resources a couple of times and my family off and on, although it was still a struggle, I was able to get over some of those huge humps, and for that I was grateful.                     

But that didn't stop me from abusing myself every now and then. Back then I could handle it, so I thought. I was blinded by my indulgences that I didn't realize that the road I was headed down would only end in disaster if I didn't stop. So what could I do to change the way I saw myself into someone who loved oneself enough so that I could live a clean life?  As I've gotten wiser, I've realized that a person has to have something in their lives that matters.  Now don't get me wrong here...my daughters' mean the world to me and I believe they were my strength. But what I'm talking about by having something that matters is having something that appeals to my inner source or attitude.

For some folks it's religion, or a spiritual event, a love for something outside of your normal life.  All the good things that we have are great!...but we all need something that makes each one of us feel content, competent, whole and grateful. I believe that that can be as different to each of us as we are individual. So the 'one thing' then is for all of us who turn towards artificial stimuli, and over do it, and become addicted to it, need to seek out what it is in ourselves that makes us feel whole. Stop the insanity!!(thank you Susan Powder) Drop the baggage that weigh's us all down and weakens our spirit. We've all had some bad things happen to us along the way. Sadly some never come out of it, but when you have the right information and we learn to let go of the things that weigh us down, we can emerge into a better life, be clean and be happy.  Although we some

times feels as though we have no control....the 'one thing' is....up to you.
[Written by Sherrie Vitello]