Public Service Announcement: This is not a confession.


My "no-fucks given here" shoes worn at Newmarket Races at the weekend. I made incredible memories with astonishingly brilliant people and that is all you can wish for in the world. If you're not laughing until your throat is sore, have you even laughed?! Breaking the cycle can only be done when you make the choice to end it. Start your own cycle, make it amazing and fill it with unicorns. 






Don’t get me wrong, I am not an advocate of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m not an advocate of any kind of scriptured religion that preaches tolerance only to those with the same beliefs who look the same and sound the same. But one thing I have seen come up over and over again in the Sobriety groups I follow on social media, is the concept of taking ownership for the wrongs you have committed in the throes of your addiction.

I feel that, over the last few months, I have been making living amends by changing the way that I am living to enable me to live my best life and to support other people to live theirs. This is also something I have been doing over the last year, whether that is by improving my own behaviours and not behaving in a hurtful manner or by distancing myself from toxicity and those people who cause others pain.

I had a whole confessional blog ready to go for my 40 days sobriety date last Tuesday. I had a whole blog post filled, literally filled for pages and pages and pages, with abhorrent things I have done as a fucked up kid fuelled by alcohol and as a fucked up young adult fuelled by alcohol.

Until Hubs asked me, “Will it cause any damage?” No, probably only to me. “Then what is the point?” I wanted to do it to free myself from the shackles of my past. Well, that was my public line. Actually, I wanted to disclose it all so somebody else couldn’t and so that I could start disclosing other things I have discovered this week about that same person. He followed it up with this:

“Nobody that loves you now gives a fuck about shit that you did when you were 16 years old.”

Or 22 apparently.

Which is funny because it’s both true and untrue. It’s like Schrodinger’s maturity epiphany. I had people in my past who couldn’t separate adult me from child me and yet I am surrounded by people now who wouldn’t believe what child me looked like and equally, they wouldn’t give a shit.

So my whole illicit past is laid bare in a blog post that I may share one day. I have no doubt that at some point I will be forced to share it to speak my truth and tell my story. Until then, I will continue to live a good life where I treat people with the love, respect and honesty they deserve in my bid to make amends for the past.

Because I am a good person. I will not lower myself to behave in the same way that others have behaved. I will not be reactive to situations that only require me to sit back, with dignity, and watch people tie themselves in knots with their lies while I live my life with the people I love. When drunkenly crying one night many moons ago (about a similar situation/person), a friend said to me, “yes, but you’re not like them.”

It was a sentence that I never forgot and it may have taken me two years to believe, but he was right. I am not like them. I do not have to behave like them. I will not be like them.

Remember that, when you are overwhelmed with the shit that people are so desperate to fling at you sometimes. You can be a part of the cycle or you can shut it down entirely. Only you can make that choice. Live in a cycle of lies, manipulations and pain or shut the cycle down and live in a cycle of love, happiness and hope. I know which choice I will be making.

Thank you Hubs for reminding me everyday about what is important. It is so easy to get caught up in reacting to situations and knowing that I have you by my side means that I know I will always make the right choices.

As James Blunt said:
You are everything
I have never been
I want you to make me better
And I've been wondering
Why you let me in
I want you to make me better

Go on, have a listen…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w2wa4Uvh4o

You know you want to.

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