Happiness, Denial, Commitment
Painting from Peter Howson’s Famine series
A repeat of an older post. First a Cherokee proverb that I like.
Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Happiness, Denial, Commitment
Hello friends, today’s post is a very personal one as today is my 29th anniversary. Anniversary for what you ask? Well June 24, 1984 was the last time I got loaded. A former fraternity brother, from a school I got kicked out of, came to visit and we got seriously loaded. That night was the culmination of nearly two years of being drunk and/or stoned every day. The next day I started a full year of sobriety and have managed for the last 29 years to stay relatively clean and sober.
Addiction sucks, it’s hard and I always want to make sure I’m clear that the hill I climbed was one of psychological addiction. I’m not a physiological addict, I was loaded because there was a lot of pain in my life, a lot of things I wanted to escape from and drugs and alcohol let me do that. I was also lucky in the midst of all of this, I was in college and having one hell of a good time. Sure there were bad times and downsides but it was easy enough to avoid that, just up the booze and the buzz. It all started to crash in the spring of 1984 and by June I was really at rock bottom and ready to change.
I want to take a minute though to express my admiration for many people in recovery who are physiological addicts. I can have a beer or two, they can’t a drink, a hit and their body creates a craving they can’t control and the spiral. Leaving under that gun all the time and being successful, clean and sober is a monumental task and that’s why I admire them, they have climbed a much bigger hill than I ever will.
The point of all of this, other than the recognition to the commitment I’ve made and the time that has passes is that this is about happiness, real happiness. When you’re loaded and having fun you can convince yourself you’re happy. You can choose think about the good times and forget the hangovers, the sickness, the incredibly stupid things you’ve done, in my case narrowly escaping getting busted as a dealer. But you’re not happy.
Denial is a mistake so the big message today friends is face your fears, your challenges and even the good things head on, eyes open deal with them. Commit to being truly happy and start today by having a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
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