I read a devastating obituary about a celebrity drug addict who relapsed after twenty plus years of sobriety.
The writer made an powerful point about how addiction isn’t a state of mind that wears off over time, but a permanent change in the shape and chemistry of the brain.
He says that if you’re counting your sober days, months, or even years, don’t forget to watch your step. You may have walked a long way since you began, but the monkey you pulled off your back has been keeping pace with you the entire way.
What a frightening prospect. Knowing that the darkness you already worked so hard to free yourself from can return at any time? God help us.
That’s why we have to be vigilant. Not about drugs, but about all of the behaviors and habits and obsessions that threaten to steal our peace.
Because the body never forgets.
Take stress, for example. During the more chaotic chapters of life, it’s easy to reach a point where it’s so familiar, we take it for granted. We write it off and compartmentalize it and think to ourselves, well, I guess that’s just how it is.
But that’s precisely when the darkness strikes. When our guard is down. When we assume we’ve earned the right to not give a shit anymore. And when we get so arrogant that we think ourselves unsinkable.
In the words of my high school football coach:
Don’t get complacent. Your opponent will sniff it out and come back to beat you in the final two minutes of the game.
Calamity will shake up whatever we have come to assume was permanent.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Is your success delivered you into a wilderness of false assumptions and bad habits?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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