Paradigm Shift

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The trite expression of “old habits die hard” could not be any more true than it is for those in early recovery. When an individual is learning how to live a life of sobriety after several years of self-centered thinking their new life is often viewed through a lens of distorted perceptions. Attempting to let go of the things that we think we know about what we need in this process was the hardest part for me. When I, Bryan Hullihen, was in early recovery I still thought that I knew best regarding what I needed to be successful in beating my addiction. I can laugh, to myself, when I am working with someone in early recovery when they say the same things I did when I was where they are. I often hear, “I just need to finish college, get a job, meet a nice girl, and hang around a better crowd”. Although all of these things are good they were not what I “needed”. It wasn’t until I had undergone a paradigm shift where my new declaration of what I needed became, “I just need to focus on my recovery” that I began to grow. One of the amazing things about this “shift” is all of the things that I thought I needed now seem to appear in my life on their own. The more one seeks to develop their recovery above all other things the more all other things seem to find their way into our lives. Remember to put first things first and if you are an alcoholic or an addict the first thing must always be recovery.

Thank you,

Bryan Hullihen

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