Fourteen months into recovery and my life is still feels chaotic. I’d been ignoring many things in my addiction; it’s partly why I used. Facing life was absolutely too horrific and terrifying. I ran from life and put all my energy into taking care of my daughter best I could while the disease of addiction went absolutely wild. I was literally driving myself insane.

Today, I make a list of three things to accomplish. I don’t always finish them all. They are the tiny itty bitty steps I broke my goals down into. The big goals are:

• I need a new job; my company is going under.
• I need more money; my hours were cut and I’ve fallen behind in my bills.
• I need to move; this place is not safe or suitable for my daughter who needs a wheelchair to get around.
• I need to continue to allow medical professionals to help heal my daughter, no matter how scary it gets.
• I need to take care of myself, first and foremost

It’s no accident self-care is at the bottom of that list. I struggle with chronic self doubt and low self esteem. For the first year I was in recovery, just taking regular showers was a goal. Meanwhile, each week I’m spending about 20 hours caring for my daughter, working 35 hours, and made service commitments to my recovery program of an average of 10 hours per week. Now it’s summertime and the kiddo is with me 24/7.

I am drowning. I am also learning. I have no choice. If I want to stay clean, I must allow myself to grow through what I’m going through.

Feel free to download this bookmark I made. I’ll post the PDF in Inspiration soon.