It's Sunday morning and I'm at the office. Doing some work on my podcast, having fun with Facebook reels, and organizing some things from the recent Recovery Stories event we had. I was at the office yesterday into the evening, after volunteering, doing the same. This is day number 14, in a row, that I've been at the office working for 217 or working on personal projects, fitting volunteer work, check-in time with my teenage son, rest, counseling, and personal time into the mix as well. My co-worker, there to facilitate some recovery meetings, looks at me and asks "What are you doing here?" surprised to see me in the office AGAIN.
I am three years into my journey through long-term recovery and I have a lot of awesome stuff going on in my life, I just don't want to fall behind. That was almost a week ago now and I got a chance to self-reflect on parts of this recently.
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Now, put down the torches and pitchforks. I am self-aware enough to keep from getting overwhelmed. That's what this publication is all about, and my boss isn't slave-driving me. He even told me to take the rest of the day off on Monday, and I appreciate that very much. But I've realized there's a massive difference in what I can handle, on my "plate", now compared to before I got into recovery. Or, while in early recovery. Or, even a year ago. I've basically been preaching in my blogs and the meetings I facilitate about how important it is to make sure you don't overwhelm yourself. The moral of the story is, overfilling your plate of responsibilities can lead you down a road toward relapse. If you're not careful.
"You can't calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass."- Timber Hawkeye
Back during my days in early recovery, just getting to my IOP appointments, Peer Recovery Coach, Therapist, and Recovery Nurse were hard enough to balance. I was trying to be a dad and a partner during this time as well. I threw a psychiatrist, and multiple medical doctor appointments in the mix. Due to how unhealthy my days of active addiction had left me. Adding a career into the mix seemed absolutely impossible. I have done a lot of cut-and-paste jobs on my responsibilities list since then. But today I live a life with a 50+ hour-a-week rewarding job that values me, being a dad, a volunteer on multiple days per week at multiple organizations, doing my own podcast, making rest a priority, AND finding time for my Higher Power and personal life. Just comparing the two snapshots of my life blows my mind.
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Now this really is just me creating another opportunity to preach self-awareness and not overloading yourself. I don't want this to come off as bragging, and I really need you to understand that being able to handle so much more today is a result of very intentional healing and pushing my limits. You have to be very careful and rigorously honest with yourself and those around you while laying out this process for yourself. Boundaries are a must, with others and yourself.
One thing I'd like you to take away from our time together today is that it took me three years to build myself into a strong capable healing man, from a broken, suicidal, and dying alcoholic. Maybe that's fast, maybe that's longer than normal. We're all different, give yourself some grace with the healthy pace it takes to build off your recovery foundation. If I can do it, you sure as hell can.
Until next time.
