Things the recovery industry will not tell you:
1. The drug worked. That is why people use it. Not weakness. Not moral failure.
A neurological event so complete and persuasive that any honest account of addiction has to start there.
The problem is not that the drug fails. The problem is that what it does is unrepeatable, and you will burn your entire life to the ground trying to get back to a place that no longer exists.
2. Shame is not guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. Guilt is appropriate. Shame is a cell with no windows. Most people use the words interchangeably. That mistake is lethal.
3. You cannot shame someone who has already named the thing you are holding over them. Say it first. Say it in plain light. The weapon drops.
4. Guilt can coexist with self-respect. Shame cannot. You can hold the damage and the dignity at the same time. I know because I live there.
5. Radical honesty does not give you back who you were. It hands you the clean slate of who you always wanted to be. The mask comes off. The cartoon other people drew of you stays on the page.
6. Nobody gets clean on a winning streak.
7. You have to be almost self-delusional in your forgiveness of yourself. (Go watch Chase Hughes)
8. The greatest sin was not the chaos. It was the absence. Being unavailable to the people who needed you.
9. Sustainable recovery starts with one thing: honesty with yourself. If you love an addict and want to help, that is the only door in.
10. I am only an expert on my recovery. Nobody is an expert on anyone else’s.
You've seen the meme: one opossum eats 5,000 ticks a season. Unfortunately, it's wrong.
When researchers dissected the stomachs of 32 wild opossums, they found zero ticks. The number came from a single lab study that got stretched into folklore, and it still gets repeated everywhere.
But the opossum doesn't need the lie. It's the only marsupial in North America. It cleans up carrion, rotting fruit, slugs, snails, and the rodents you'd rather not have around. It eats copperheads and rattlesnakes, because it's immune to their venom. And it almost never carries rabies, since its body runs too cool for the virus to take hold.
So when one waddles through the yard at night, you're not looking at a pest, you're looking at the cleanup crew that works for free.
I suggest every man to have a self care day once a month. Dont care what u do. Fuck that job. Pig out. Sleep all day. Do car shit. Cruise the boulevard at 4am. Lay up with your wife.
Just Take care of your mental health Nephews. Unc not saying this in vain.