You Need to Fight Your Own Battle
You may have heard the saying, “you can get the monkey off your back, but the circus is still in town” but not quite known what it means. Addiction can feel like there’s an angry 500 pound gorilla on your back, with its hands wrapped tightly around your throat, squeezing the life out of you. That’s the opponent an addict or alcoholic contends with on a daily basis. If you’re lucky enough to get clean and sober, it’s a daily reprieve from drinking and using. Though the gorilla may not be strangling the life out of you, he and his cronies are still in town, waiting to pounce when the opportunity strikes.
If you are an addict or alcoholic, you have your own circus and everyone else with the disease has theirs. You need to fight your own battle, and they, theirs. Do not get sucked into a friend’s/boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s/spouse’s or anyone else’s battle with addiction. Sure, it is important to carry the message of recovery to others, but there is a limit and only so much you can do for another person before it is at the detriment to yourself. All too often one of us will go to help another, and the next moment, both are using, or someone is dead.Keepi
Keep Working On Your Recovery
We will always have the disease of addiction, and we will always have to work on keeping it in remission. Other people need to do the same. Stick with the winners, help when you can, and keep your head on straight. Even someone else’s negativity will start eating away at you if you let it. Putting up boundaries to protect yourself from another’s relapse-mode language and behavior may feel cold, but it is necessary. It is not your circus, and you are not the conductor.
If you are struggling with that 500 pound gorilla, we can help peel him off your back. You don’t have to be alone anymore; you can recover, and you can begin feeling better today. We know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and hopeless, but we have hope for you. At the Lakehouse Recovery Center, we can show you a freedom like you have never known, but only if you pick up the phone. Give us a call, we are open 24/7, toll-free at (877) SOBER | (877) 762-3707. You can do this, your life can change, and this decision is one you will not regret.