# Recovery

The most damaging lie I told myself was that people couldn’t love me for who I was, that it was necessary to divine what they wanted and play that part, instead of just being myself.

Have you been able to forgive yourself? To accept yourself for who you are and the choices you’ve made? And have you forgiven others for being who they are, with their limitations? Are you able to accept life as it is? Not situations that shouldn’t be tolerated, but the particular life you were given and have gone on to create? Have you been able... See more

The only way I knew to accommodate the duality in me was to drink.

My body knows — has always known — what I want. The feeling of ease and sinking into, yes. This. This feels right.

In sobriety, I am recalling what my body wants.

What I have to tease out in sobriety is what is a nervous feeling for good reason, and what is a nervous feeling from trauma.

The body knows, my favorite Boundaries Coach Molly Davis... See more

Sobriety has been about finding my true self and identifying the false narratives, and then laughing at the ridiculous grandiosity and general overblown-ness of my fears and feelings.

The greatest gift of sobriety is recovering the person I was meant to be and getting to spend time with him.

I drank to avoid: that I have to make myself essential so people won't kick me out or abandon me, that my only value is in how useful or accommodating I can be to other people.

the challenge for Anders is to reinsert himself in the quotidian flow of life