Recovery Manifesto
We are done being sick. No longer will we sabotage ourselves out of the pain of our circumstances. The wounds of our mothers and fathers, the random family members and friends. The bullies, the poverty, the losses, the unfortunate situations. The sadness, the loneliness and the brokenness. Oh, those things will still come. We will decide to choose wellness anyway. Each day or hour or minute. Whatever it takes. Our “home” is what is inside of us. We decide what stays and what goes in the trash can. Home is our center. Now, it’s ok to recover, heal, and be well. It’s ok to be ok, regardless of our circumstances. Today, we decide.
Layne Staley sang the song, “Would”. They lost their friend Andy to addiction, and it compelled his band to write a song contemplating recovery. He sings, “If I would, could you?” Addiction and brokenness are a massive wave that continually sweeps you away despite your best efforts, especially from the promises we make to ourselves and others. Somewhere inside us, there is a deep belief that whatever ails us, we aren’t worthy to move past it. Then we inflict harm on ourselves, not always with the understanding that we are. Smoking? Drinking? Drugs? Overeating? Cutting? Sex addictions? It’s numbing medicine. In the throes of addictions, we can’t see the destruction clearly. We can't see that it’s a form of self-hatred that just repeats the original infliction of pain. Layne knew about the flood that brought the waves. He also knew it was a black hole. He still lost his life. He didn’t see the way out.
The movie “A Good Person” gives a phenomenal example of recovery and how important it is to choose to move forward regardless of the challenges in front of us. A man in recovery chose to put his own feelings aside to welcome another addict into his recovery group, even though she was the one who caused the loss of his daughter. What a wicked web that had been woven! They chose to break it. They chose healing. The addictions and unforgiveness surely could have permanently destroyed them both. It had, until a conscious decision by the man to exercise the importance of denying himself in place of her recovery and his own. It is when selfishness moves to selflessness that our center is restored. We are the authors of our story. We can change the script.
In Ascension, a man plummets to the bottom of dark water, drowning. You can’t get any worse than that. It seems all hope is lost. He then slowly rises back to the surface once again. It is an excellent example of recovery. The ascension is slow, as it is in real life. We don’t self-destruct overnight, and we won’t completely recover overnight. Healing is a very slow process in which we are stretched profoundly to become new again. We must choose to ascend.
J. Seward Johnson Jr.’s sculpture “Double Check” sits at ground level in front of what used to be the World Trade Center since 1982. It amazingly survived the fall of those buildings. After the dust settled, that sculpture was still sitting there in the aftermath of a catastrophic disaster encompassed in the rubble. Although just a sculpture of a man on a bench, it reminded me of how parallel it is to a real person. We are so much stronger than we realize, and we can be stretched farther than our imagination could ever take us. Most of us don’t believe that though. Believing that is a decision. Feelings are fickle; we must not live by them . We can survive the worst.
My music play list consists of all songs pertaining to time. It is so important in the recovery process to be patient with ourselves and allow the adequate time we require to heal. It is so important to trust the process. The concept of time is broad and applies to our wellness in many ways.
Life has seasons we must endure. There will be seasons that are dark and difficult. It is crucial to our healing that we know and understand that all bad things pass if we endure. Summer turns to fall, and then winter. Some seasons like fall are lovely, but it eventually gets cold, and we must hang in there until the sun shines again. Summer always returns.
Healing and wellness are our home if we choose it. It’s where we are at our best. It’s the place where we may be scarred, but we rise above the pain and choose to live the life we were meant to live. Sometimes home is an alternate place we aren’t expecting and that’s ok. It’s rarely the building that matters. We have not run too far to get back home.