Bryan Hullihen and the Mental Shift

Being in early recovery from alcoholism and/or drug addiction is both an exciting and precarious time. I, Bryan Hullihen, know this from personal experience having been in early recovery more times than I'd care to admit. In active addiction we push all our loved ones away, most of us end up broke, and we find ourselves all alone or around other people who definitely don't have our best interest in mind. Then we come to find a path of recovery from this seemingly hopeless state and begin to feel amazing as our friends and loved ones return, we find a little money in our pockets, we surround ourselves with people who truly care, and we are no longer plagued by an assiduous yearning to get loaded. Too many people get to this place in early recovery and mistakenly assume they "got it" which invariably triggers a mental shift. Prior to this "shift" these folks, myself included, had recovery as the number one priority. Our desire and focus were where they needed to be which was on our sobriety because every bit of ourselves was required to claw our way out from the depths of despair. Then the shift occurs and, since all is well, we forget that decisions in our lives need to be made through the lens of recovery. We begin to get further away from recovery principles and activities that saved our lives and before long, our jobs, recreation, and dating take priority and our decisions are made through those lenses. I can't even count how many times I've made this mistake. The feeling of guilt and remorse from the next day following a relapse is still easily felt and the ensuing feelings of helplessness are crystal clear. The way those feelings perpetrated my drug use and my return to all that misery is something I remember all too well. Looking back, it is easy to see the process of the mental shift at work. For the experienced eye when I see it in other people now it can feel like yelling at the TV screen during a scary movie, in all its futility, attempting to warn the actor of their impending death. The analogy fits because the decision to keep recovery number one must come from the one who suffers from alcoholism/drug addiction. We mustn't forget that we are "in recovery" and the decisions of our lives must be made through that lens. Our choices must be made with recovery principles as our guides in order to remain vigilant against that "mental shift".

Thank you all so much for your continued support. I always look forward to reading your comments and I am always available to those who may need someone to talk to. You can reach me at https://www.facebook.com/soberlivingarizona or https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-hullihen-82560326/ or https://bryanhullihen.wordpress.com/.

Your friend,

Bryan Hullihen