Hungry, Hungry Hippos #2
As many people are dealing with an addiction we need to realize that not every addiction is the same. You cannot just have a cure all for everyone. Each person will face recovery and recover in his own way and at her own pace. No one every goes out to ruin their life. It is where they find themselves after a strange and grueling trip of choices that didn’t go the way that was expected.
This addiction can cost us everything we hold dear in our lives. People may be forced to walk away from someone. Jobs are lost, time is wasted and money is just gone. Addiction costs us, just like it cost Samson his eyes and eventually his life. Everyone knows that becoming addicted to something can ruin our lives. Even though I do not believe in a one size fits all cure for addiction I think there are some things we need to think about when we try to overcome our addictions.
I have several friends who have been through recovery with a great program called Alcoholics Anonymous. At their meetings you always introduce yourself with your name and then you state that you are an alcoholic. We’ve watched this scene in movies and on television several times and it always reminds me that we need to admit we have a problem before we can ever fix it or overcome our addiction.
So we have to start with what is wrong if we are ever going to improve our situation. Think how Samson’s life could have been different if he had admitted that he was chasing the next pretty girl who caught his eye. Anytime I have overcome something in my life I have had to take a look in the mirror and tell myself that it cannot stay this way any longer. Whenever I have tried to help another person with an addiction; until they admitted there was a problem I could not help them. It is a hard and scary thing to voice it out loud and say we are not completely all together as we want to be. Even though it is scary we still need to admit where we find ourselves.
The admission is not enough for us to overcome our addiction. The beautiful thing about AA is that you are given a sponsor, or someone to walk with you through your battle. They know as an organization that if we have someone to turn to when our fight becomes too much that we can lean on to get through the toughest of days. What if Samson had decided to talk to his parents, to take their advice and find a wife that believed the way they did? Maybe Samson was just one good friend away from not destroying his entire life.
Hopefully, we all have a person we can turn to at any time in our lives. A person who can walk with us through life’s struggles is worth more than a million dollars in the bank. When the story of man started in the book of Genesis it says that as things took shape God looked and saw that they were good. This goes on and on in this poem about the beginning of life. The first time anything is called bad is when God saw that Adam was alone. God proclaims that it is not good and so Eve comes into the picture to be someone to walk this life with Adam. From the jump we are not supposed to do life alone. Adam needed someone to be with him and for him to be with. Nothing has changed in all these years. God set them up to be together and fight through problems together. When one of their sons killed the other, they had each other and continued living because they could help each other through their grief and have more children.
So who is your person? Who can you call no matter what time of the day or night? Who will you depend on to see you through your darkest night? But there is also the other side of the coin. Are you that person for someone else? Who knows you’ve got their back no matter what happens?
When I was in High School Nancy Reagan started a campaign for young people to keep them off of drugs. Her catch phrase was “Just Say No.” Now as a high school kid we laughed about the slogan. Thinking if it were that easy then why do we need a campaign or catchy slogan to make it happen? I was naïve as a kid to laugh off that advice from our First Lady. It is simple but so profound. It is a matter of choice at times. Can we just have the backbone to say no to ourselves? The excuses need to end. We have to realize that the first person who can help us looks at us in the mirror every morning. We need to talk to ourselves and remember that we are capable of making the right choices.