An important side-effect of indulging in my addictions for 20 years was that my maturity was way behind where it should have been. I got married at age 32, but inside, I was really still 12 years old. My poor wife and stepdaughters! All those years I thought I wasn’t hurting anyone, but I was hurting them in the future.
Think about it. The way people mature is by facing the difficult realities of life and working through them, coming out the other side of that struggle stronger and more mature, more patient and having a greater understanding.
But what do I do when I get stressed out with life? Run to the addiction and escape it all. I end up losing all of that experience and the opportunity to mature, grow, learn, and develop patience and understanding. I’m sheltering myself from life, so I really just stop living. I’m dead. So coming out of this into recovery means I get to start growing up and facing the difficulties of life again. It hurts and it’s difficult, but it is so incredibly rewarding. Keep going. Keep facing the difficult realities of life with your new friends in recovery and catch back up to where you should have been all along. You’re family and co-workers will thank you for it!
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