When someone says “I surrender” you picture this dirty scrap of some kind of cloth, that used-to-be white, waving desperately to indicate their part in the battle. It’s over. They are pulling out of this crushing war because it has been recognized that they aren’t going to win. Wave after wave of attempts we’ve tried to storm our enemy, addiction, thinking in our minds that we can overtake the opposition. And time after time, we have lost.
Addiction. It will take you. It can, it does, and it will. It will watch you suffer. It will listen to your desperate cries to make the pain cease and not respond to you. It doesn’t care that you are cold, or sick, or hungry. It thrives on your isolation, loneliness, and self-loathing. It exhausts the very being of your soul. The less of you that exists... the more of the disease. It feeds on your misery and knows that as long as you are holding onto your drink or drug... it owns you. Addiction is gruesome and heartless. It thrives on your vulnerability and weaknesses. You have to reach a point.... some call it “your bottom.”
It is here, you must recognize... and finally admit--COMPLETE DEFEAT.
Those words that I just shared, are as true as they are dark. However, I ask you not to hover over my description of the relentless evil that is addiction. But hold onto the message…This is where you can surrender. This is where you can... with anything and everything that you have left in you, wave your flag.
Here, let there be no confusion or misinterpretation of the word “surrender.” Because surrendering doesn’t mean you are giving up. Surrendering means that you don’t have to fight anymore. I’m sure, deep down, you will agree with me because all of our pasts will back this up... that in the war of “me versus Addiction”— I have absolutely zero chance at winning if I’m trying to beat it, moderate it, or modify it.
Still sounds a lot like losing, doesn’t it? Read it again.
You CAN WIN... but it’s by acknowledging the obsession and the power addiction can have over you. You win when you overcome it, when your focus is YOU again... and not the drink or the drug. You win, when you live in Recovery. That is when we are victorious.
I will close this with a quote that I absolutely fell in love with because of its truth:
“Out of this weakness comes strength
Out of this surrender, comes victory.”
-Unknown
So you see.... you aren’t losing when you surrender in this war with addiction. When you surrender is when you begin winning your life back.
Marney
P.S. I’m Grateful.