THOUGH FOR THE DAY ~ KEEPING YOURSELF BALANCED IN ADDICTION RECOVERY

I have a hard time keeping myself balanced. What does that even mean right? Well to me it means not going off like gangbusters (I can't believe I just used the term gangbusters... when did I start talking like my grandmother?) in one direction leaving other parts of myself to rust up and die. A little over-dramatic? Maybe.

There was a time when my only goal in recovery was getting through the day without using. Happily, through time and a lot of work, I have built up skills that allow me to get through most days without ever thinking about my drug of choice.
Great. But what about all the other things that I've tried working on throughout my recovery. Why do I go balls out, start seeing results, then get kind of bored and let it fall to the wayside?

I feel like this is still me doing everything to excess, choking the life out of things and then leaving them to die. How can I keep myself balanced in addiction recovery?

My latest interest of body art, which I am lovingly calling Body Art by Erin, is all consuming. I'm thinking about it constantly, planning in my head, even dreaming about it at night. Fine. It's good to be excited about new directions that life is taking you. BUT... I find that I'm ignoring some key areas of my life because of my new interest.

Why do I have such trouble with keeping myself balanced? Why am I going full speed ahead in one direction, so passionate about it, then all of a sudden... not so much.

I'm trying to avoid strangling the fun out of this new body art interest but it's proving to be difficult to balance it into my life.

I KNOW what I need to do but I just can't get myself to actually DO what I need to do. I need to get back to reading the author's that really center me at night. I need to get back to the simple routines that get me through the day. I need to get back to focusing on these twenty four hours and staying in the moment. I feel like my hard work is kind of slipping away at the moment.

But even as I'm sitting here writing I am reminding myself of the post I wrote about ebbs and flows in recovery. I've felt like this before, hung in there, and came out the other end.

If history has taught us anything (the history of Erin that is) it is that I love to spout off addiction recovery sayings. Now, what saying would I annoyingly come up with if this situation was someone else's?

I would definitely start off by telling them that "this too shall pass". I might follow that up with a simple "be here now" and then end the whole thing with a little "Easy does it... but do it".

Taken from "What Winners Do"