Drugs Were Just the Symptom
Send us Fan Mail I came into recovery thinking I had a drug problem. And looking at my life at the time, it made sense. Drugs had taken me places I never thought I would go. So naturally, I believed getting clean would solve the problem. But something happened when I stopped using. I began to realize that getting rid of the drugs didn't automatically change the way I thought, felt, behaved, or saw myself. The fear was still there. The insecurity was still there. The need for acceptance was st...
I came into recovery thinking I had a drug problem.
And looking at my life at the time, it made sense. Drugs had taken me places I never thought I would go. So naturally, I believed getting clean would solve the problem.
But something happened when I stopped using.
I began to realize that getting rid of the drugs didn't automatically change the way I thought, felt, behaved, or saw myself.
The fear was still there. The insecurity was still there. The need for acceptance was still there. The way I saw myself—and the things I believed about myself—didn't disappear just because the drugs did.
Over time, I began to realize that, for me, drugs were just the symptom. Underneath them was something much deeper: an identity problem.
In this episode, I share what recovery began to look like once I stopped focusing only on what I was doing and started discovering who I was.
Getting clean gave me the opportunity to live.
Recovery started teaching me who was doing the living.