Getting High on Recovery

Recovery is an explosion of emotion.

___

Your emotions, your experience, your mind can explode in unimaginable fireworks. It does not look pretty. Recovery is raw and real, because life is just that: raw and real.

Life explodes and people die

Life can be injected and people get high

Life will kick you and you will fly

Life will make you bloody and you cry

Life is real and tastes like steel. Recovery from addiction, recovery from a mental illness, recovery from trauma is about facing the real emotions and real experiences that we have each day. It is about recovering our honesty. Recovery is refusing to lay in a pool of your own misery.

“The heart that is broken is the hear that is open.” U2

Recovery takes root when you and I open our eyes. The shadows lessen just a little. The light strengthens. The voices inside of our heads falter a little.

“If I open my eyes, you disappear” U2

Recovery means that you and I allow ourselves to be raised by wolves. When you face yourself at your worst, you begin your recovery. You become stronger than your fear. Your worst experiences become your teacher.

It means you refuse to allow yourself to be kicked down by life, by others, or by your own mind. When you have nothing else, it is allowing the poetry to come out of you. It means that even when you walk through the shadows, you find the light.

No matter how much we pray it so, we cannot recover in fast forward. Recovery, like life, is lived one day at a time. Recovery means that every day, we must:

Keep it Real

Inspired by U2, “Raised by Wolves.”

Join the conversation and I hope to hear from you in the comments. If you like what I write, please share it and sign up to receive regular updates.