Bryan Hullihen and The path to success

As many of you know, my name is Bryan Hullihen and I have been in recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction for many years now. Remembering the things that got me to where I am in my success is one of the things that keeps me grounded but it is also the thing that allows me to have future success. The path to the life I always wanted is through recovery. It is a funny thing how often we find that we have arrived at our destination in life through some other means than we had initially anticipated. Recovery has been like that for me. It seems counter intuitive to think that if we want financial freedom we need to be attending to our recovery instead of our careers but that has been my story and so many others. When I was younger I would go headlong into some business venture or career path thinking that all I needed to feel better was to find success the way I defined it at the time; money, cars, Realestate, etc. I truly believed this to my core and so I lived my life as if that were true. I would work like a crazy person not because I loved it but because I thought that was going to be my escape from the hell of alcoholism although I didn't know at the time that was what I was trying to escape from, that was why I drank. Try to imagine the American dream the way you see it and then associate all of those wonderful things with the only path to your contentment. That was my daily struggle. I wanted the things I could see my friends getting with ease and thought those things would bring me happiness but it was like they where in a boat  and I was swimming against the current. They were cruising and I was drowning. At one point it became too much and I finally gave up. I threw my arms in the air and, almost out of spite, told the people who were willing to help me, "let's see what you got because I got nothing". I truly wasn't sure if what they were going to do was going to work but I was willing to try it and I knew that if things didn't work out then I could always go back to drinking and using drugs. After about a week of my following some directions from those people I began noticing some things. I was feeling a little more free and started smiling a some more. I began to feel like maybe I could be successful. The main thing I noticed was that when I said the word "successful" I was no longer referring to the American Dream but success in staying sober and finding serenity. My idea of success was changing. My focus was shifting to finding success in sobriety and that became my daily mission. As I progressed early on in my recovery I began having some other realizations too. All of those things I could see my friends getting  began showing up in my life as well. Another thing I noticed was that they were showing up in my life with ease as well and I wasn't even going after those things, I was going after my recovery and those things I was always after showed up with my success in sobriety. So that has been my experience with this concept. When my focus was placed in the proper direction I not only found what I needed but also what I wanted. If you are going through early recovery and you feel as though you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel remind yourself that as soon as you associate your success in achieving recovery with success in life the sooner all the things you've ever wanted are going to be able to show up in your life.

Thank you all so much for your continued support and as I always I look forward to reading your comments.


Your Friend,

Bryan Hullihen