Courage After Cowardice

Usually, I post links to my blog on my Facebook page when I write a new post. I will be doing no such thing with this post. Too much shame.

I wasn't going to even write this post. But I remember how grateful I am for my own honesty when I'm reading through some of my old posts. So, I post today. I post today for myself, for later.

I have been struggling with Marsha, my addiction. "Struggling" is a weak word for the battle I've been fighting.

It's too hard.

And, I swear, no one gets it. I swear, no one understands. I go to PASG meetings and everyone is doing so great. And I feel like the black sheep at addiction recovery meetings. I feel like the odd one out. I feel like a patient with an illness at a hospital, and everyone who was there when I got there is healed now. And I feel like I keep watching patients come in and - yay! - they're like me! I'm sorry they're like me, but the company is nice. We relate, we are as sick as each other. But then they get better, and they leave. And I am so happy for them- genuinely happy- but I'm also even more aware of how long it's taken me to heal. And I'm like this veteran of illness. People come and go and I'm still here. And I feel a little freakish in the hospital. I am ill and this is a place for ill people, but everyone else gets better. I don't fit in. If I, sick, don't fit in in the hospital, then where?

And where are my nurses and doctors? They've all given up on me because I should be better by now. They can only do so much.

I have been slipping. I have been indulging. I have been finding temporary comfort and reprieve in Marsha's arms. Life is too big and Marsha promises to fix it. And she never does.

I'm afraid that people will say this serves me right for having a season of doubt and questions. And maybe that's true. The doubt I have experienced was a darkness of sorts. But I have been honestly, earnestly seeking. And, yes, all this doubt and darkness and life's too-big-ness and my fears and anxieties and feeling so very, very overwhelmed at all my failures have culminated in a slip. Or two.

I woke this morning drenched in shame, and cloaked in regret. Marsha lied again. Brought me to the place where she promised relief, and left me stranded. Relief wasn't there. Only regret. Will I ever learn?

Well, now what? I could sulk in shame and regret. I could fold under the weight. I could pout and moan and wonder "why?" I could retreat and isolate- and, oh, I want to. But I have a choice here. I had a choice yesterday. I had a choice between courage and cowardice, and I chose cowardice. Today, the choice repeats. I can't go back and undo what I've done. I can't choose courage for my yesterday. And it would have been better for me to have chosen courage yesterday because now that moment is gone, and I will never retrieve it. I can never choose courage for that moment. But this moment is here. And I can choose courage today. I can choose to stand, to shed the shame and regret by repenting, and by forgiving my own self. I can choose now to courageously turn back to God. The cowardly thing to do would be to hide, or to throw my hands up and say, "forget this! I can't do it. I give up." The cowardly thing to do would be the easy thing to do. I could so easily step into a relapse. I could easily step into the depression that begs my attention. Tempting. The courageous thing to do would be to accept every moment in my past, including the recent moments, and move. Move. Go. I will go. Today, I will stand and begin another journey. I will not stay in this gutter. I will not lie down. I will pick up my weapons, which I dropped when I surrendered to my enemy, and I will march forward.

In the words of Allison Krauss: "A single battle lost, but not the war."

I stand. I fight. I will not die.