Courage

All credit due to Brene Brown for inspiring this post. If you’ve not read any of her work on guilt, shame, fear and courage you should consider doing exactly that. The insight she offers may just set you free in a new and beautiful way.

In my younger days, I might have defined courage as more of a physical expression of a person’s lack of fear, like being willing to do something reckless in spite of danger. Now that I have a bit more living under my belt I know that real courage is typically something very different; I believe that true courage comes in many forms and most of the time has nothing to do with anyone’s willingness to do something foolish without regard to the consequences (although it could at times be part of the equation). Courage and vulnerability are strange-but-true bedfellows. What greater courage than to step forward at your most vulnerable? You know the risk, yet step forward anyway.

In the life of an addict, we are at our most courageous when we allow our true selves to emerge in all of their vulnerability and we are at our strongest as we own our weakness. We gain courage by reaching our bottom and deciding that enough is enough. Reaching bottom is not a requirement for sobriety necessarily, but for a great many of the worst cases that’s what it takes for us to decide to change.

At no time in the life of an addict is he or she more vulnerable than at his or her lowest point, after all the things it took to get us there have forced our surrender.  It takes courage to make the decision to say “ENOUGH,” as well as to follow through with all the changes that must occur afterwards. We must not only retool our way of thinking, we must begin taking steps to rebuild our life in a way that will enable us to stay clean and sober- learn a whole new way of life.

Courage is facing ourselves at our worst without giving up on the man or woman in the mirror. Being at our worst isn't necessarily a statement about our physical condition as much as it is our mental, emotional and spiritual state. Courage is continuing to fight that battle after we've been hardest hit - smacked by guilt, shame and remorse over our choices. Courage is indeed getting up when you've been knocked down, but addicts have to take it a few steps further and acknowledge that we're the ones who knocked us off our feet- our choices and behaviors got us here. Courage to face self when self is the problem- that's something with which addict and non-addicts alike struggle daily.

Do you or I have the courage to face ourselves, our greatest fears, worries and insecurities? Maybe not at all or maybe not today, but when we know we are not alone it can help to bridge that gap. We are all in this fight, and just like with the rest of life, we are all in this together. Take heart, take courage and take aim at your opportunities.