Shame is such a strong and powerful emotion. It’s the emotion that can drive addiction and at the same time, the one that can stop you from getting help. That was certainly the case for me. The world has come a long way in its attitude towards addiction. The line “hello, my name is X and I am an alcoholic” has almost become a cultural cliche. Whether thats helpful or not is something I will explore another time - but it shows how some addictions have become more socially acceptable to talk about. Yet others remain shrouded in silence. Take sex addiction for example. Sex is a part of every human story, literally none of us would be here without it. It’s often described as one of the most beautiful expressions of love between two people. But still… we don't talk about it. Many of us would happily discuss our relationship with the toilet before we’d ever admit to struggles around sex. When you stop and think about it, that’s absurd. As long as there are topics we can’t talk about, the...
This is a concept that I have struggled with, and I know that many other people in recovery do as well, especially in the beginning. I remember feeling that my early sobriety was so fragile, so unsteady that I needed to build a fortress around it to protect it. In practice that meant being quite self centred. Recovery was my number one priority for a time. Ahead of everything else. I felt that I needed to prioritise meetings, phone calls and reading over time with my family. I do not regret that early behaviour, I knew that if I wanted to be the kind of person who could be the father my children deserved and if I wanted to be the husband that my wife deserved then I need to work on myself. I needed to make improvements. I needed to get sober. And that took some self centredness in the beginning. But quite soon after amassing some stable sobriety I soon realised that I had been given a gift. I really felt like I had been shown the secret code to life. I really felt that I had a res...