Monday, November 19, 2007

It Occurred To Me.

It occurred to me tonight that my husband is very young. We're young folks. His addiction has made a mess of his life very quickly in a very few years...but he's still young! I'm still young! We've got years and years ahead of us!

I don' t know why it never occurred to me before that we're young, and that being young is a good thing in a lot of ways for our recovery. We're just starting out, and we're taking steps to get our shit together, both individually and together, in the first years of our marriage. We've got a solid, if rocky, foundation.

I was thinking about his parents tonight, and how his mother is only beginning to have some meaningful recovery in her life in the last six months. She's done really well for herself, but she's still struggling. She's not had any real clean time yet...she'll go a few weeks, and then she'll mess up; however, this is coming from a woman who was high most of the time for most of the last 30 years or so. It's real progress, and she's going to her meetings as if her life depended on it (because her life depends on it). His father refuses to go to Al-Anon or Nar-Anon. He's hurting a lot, and there seems to be very little hope in their situation.

Comparatively, we're in a better place. If we can both keep growing, keep changing for the better, we can have a lot of long, strong years to come. There's hope there. I like finding it.

3 comments:

Wayward Son said...

I think somewhere long before we come to this world we pick our challenges. and it's far less serendipitous than one might think though I do love the concept. You really do seem to be finding your truths and I, for one, am not only happy to hear it but a little bit in awe of how magnificently you have risen to the occasion.

Mary P Jones (MPJ) said...

It's true -- my husband is younger than most of the guys in his group and we're thankful. I think it's harder the older one gets -- and gets much more complicated with kids and the older the kids get.

Anonymous said...

This is something my counselor is constantly reminding me of when i get down for things not happening as fast as it should; he reminds me that I have been a heroin addict for 17 years, that while I am old, I am not that old, and that I should be proud that I have accomplished what I have in the last 5 months. Sure 5 months doest stack up to 18 years, but it's 5 months into a new and different life, one going forward, not backwards.