Letting Go of The Past & An Addicted Step Mother

I have to be honest and tell you that I started this blog for me so that I may have a place to get support, process my thoughts and finally let them go. Although this is still a very important part, what keeps me coming back after I feel like I've said everything I needed to, is that I've realized one of the greatest gifts of recovery is being able to help others. Thinking that my posts might help someone out there motivates me to keep writing and share what Ive learned over the years. 

In this post I thought I should talk a bit about letting go since most of us, including me, struggle with it in recovery. In recovery we struggle with a lot of things we need to let go of: the pain, the sadness, old friends, old places, old habits, old beliefs, old ways of doing things, the list goes on. It's a huge and difficult process for all of us. Letting go of who we think we are can be extremely frightening.

This is especially true in the beginning of recovery but its something we still face in our daily lives although maybe in smaller amounts. I got a message to my phone late last night around 11. It was a picture of the little boy my step mother and father would have had if she hadn't lost it when she was 8 months pregnant. 

In the picture he was obviously dead and it showed. He was all blue, wrap in a blanket so she could take a picture before cremating him. It made me very sad but also I was a little disturbed by this picture. I didn't really know what to make of it. As I was putting my phone away she sent another message telling me to think of him since it was his birthday and he would be 5 years old today. 

I still didn't know what to make of her texts so I started asking myself a bunch of questions. Why is she really sending me this? Does she want to make me feel guilty that we did drugs together when she was pregnant? Why send me a message so late? Is she high right now? Or maybe she mentally ill ? It just kept bugging me and bringing back memories about my own situation that Id rather forget.

I finally told myself I have to just let it go. The past is the past and that's where it will stay. No need to keep feeling guilty over something that wasn't really in my control. Although its never that easy. As for my own situation, Ill let those memories go for today but I know they will come back to visit me eventually. Thinking about letting go helped distract me from the pain of my past and concentrate on something more important. Sharing my experience to hopefully help someome else let go of a hurtful past.

I think its important that we remind ourselves to let go of the things that do us no good. Letting ourselves move on to something more positive and good for us. We can't move on with our future if we keep getting dragged back into our past. We can't become what we are meant to be if we hold on to what we once were. This is a lesson I'm still learning everyday. 

I constantly struggle with wanting to be the person I was before drugs physically and mentally but with the knowledge I have now. I'm always comparing my social life, my fitness, my looks, my confidence to the person I once was. I know its not doing me any good. I need to let go to grow. I have to stop trying to be the person I was so I can become someone even better then who I was back then.

Charmed