# Recovery

The lie in every alcoholic heart is this:

I need to be something different than who I am in order to make my way in the world.

At first, alcohol helped me make that difficult caterpillar to butterfly transformation., from who I was to who I thought I needed to be. Later on, it helped me forget about the burgeoning distance between what I knew of... See more

Until I gave up my made-up construct for the life I thought I was supposed to be living, I couldn’t begin to live the life that was actually meant for me. Until I let go of everything not meant for me, what was meant for me couldn’t find me.

“Don’t insist that what happens should happen as you wish, wish that things happen as they actually happen then your life will go well.” — Epictetus

"It lets me be nice to myself, cancel plans, change my mind, be tired, ask for things from other people, and know that I might have different needs from them. By that, other people have different needs from me, and I don't need to feel abandoned by them."

But when you believe in this perfect world — not in God, necessarily, but in the crushing beauty of every tiny leaf, every little shimmer of sunshine on water, every faint breeze drifting through the air — you connect with your capacity for love, with your uncanny ability to form new connections and discover new ideas, with your unbelievable... See more

I felt sick in that house all the time because it’s a terrible feeling to be cast in the role of co-conspirator before you’re old enough to choose, or to have any say at all. It makes you feel meaningless and powerless and like you’re part of something secretive and ugly, even if you don’t fully understand what it is.

the emotional literacy section of the manhood handbook was ripped out somewhere around second grade and replaced with “just walk it off.”

Perfectionism is a mindset that demands we perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient as a person. We conflate our goodness as a person with our performance in areas we care about—academics, our job, our social behavior, fitness, appearance, parenting, home organization, the list goes on.

I think I became an alcoholic because I was ashamed of me. I was afraid to be me.