In my earliest days of recovery, I can clearly remember the mornings. My eyes would open and again I would realize it hadn’t been a dream or nightmare but reality. My wife knew everything and so did my children. I didn’t feel like getting up and just rolling over but I couldn’t do that either or my wife would become suspicious I was doing something again.
In those days, I would share in group and talk about feeling not just like crap but “the thing that aspires to be crap.” It was to show how low and worthless I felt. The guilt and shame were heavy loads. I was still in the middle of Step 1 and admitting I needed help. Step 2 was Hope and what hope was there for me? How could this ever get better?
I write this and it has been 642 days since my recovery began. It does it get better, but it takes time, patience, stubbornness, and working the Steps. It also takes learning you are worth of hope and even being happy. I found hope long before I found happiness. Hope came as I allowed God to shepherd me in like a hen with her chicks.
The way I feel about it is like there is a nasty, cold storm and I am being drenched with rain, sleet, and perhaps hailstones. I have no shelter, no place to go, and am without hope. The Lord comes along with an exceptionally large, very strong umbrella to shield me from all of it. It would be so rude to accept someone’s umbrella and not talk to them, wouldn’t it? I talk to the Lord daily and He keeps his umbrella over me.
What I’m trying to do now is to beckon to those reading this to join me under the umbrella. There’s plenty of room and you can be sheltered, too. The pain recedes and the shame melts under the light of His smile and speaking the truth to Him and any others who should hear it. Don’t feel like you’re being a bother or taking up someone else’s spot!
I remember early on doubting everything my wife said or did or her facial expressions because I was sure she was just one step away from going out the door. She even called me on that more than once. It took time for me to understand how defensive I was being and to know she and I were on the same team. I had to have faith in that and then let that faith grow stronger into knowledge.
If you’re feeling like crap or what aspires to be crap then, please, know there is hope, forgiveness, and future worth fighting towards. There’s a reason recovering addicts will say to each other “here’s to another 24!” Take it a day at time and make each one a little better and be humble enough to accept help and a spot under the umbrella.
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