Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a word that we all struggle to achieve from our family members, co-workers, friends, and even our neighbors for subjecting them to our drunken fits held publicly in the front yard!    However, the one person who is the hardest to ask forgiveness from is the one person who HAS to forgive us for us to go to the next level of healing.  That person is 'self'.  We have to learn to forgive ourselves before the forgiveness of anyone else can add to the healing aspect of our recovery.

We say the words, 'I forgive myself' but do we?  Or do we constantly replay our past mistakes in our minds and constantly rethink our bad choices all along the way.  'if I turned left instead of turning right, if i had went straight home after the party, if i had never started drinking in the first place'  If, If, If....we have all said it applying to all aspects of our lives.  But we can't go back in a time machine and rearrange our actions altering the course we have already walked.  We can't take back words already put in the air.  We can't take back emotions or actions or thoughts, or scars.  All we can do is to keep putting one foot in the front of the other, one step at a time, one day at a time and pray that when situations come up again that may cause us to stray from the sober path, that we will be strong enough to avoid the bad choices and continue on the right path.

In the meantime along our journey we can only 'forgive ourselves' and lay down at the end of each day knowing that our healing has ultimately got to come from God above and from within in our minds and souls.  We have to forgive ourselves even when others are too hurt to forgive us for that is truly the biggest step in finding peace!