Continuing from the last post, Father John Powell was one of my early mentors although I never met him. He is retired now but still very active. His books—especially Why Am I Afraid to Love—helped me to accept that I had the opportunity to begin a new life by letting go of old concepts.

By the time we are 21, it is estimated that we each have retained 20,000 hours of negative self-talk. Father Powell’s books are easy to read and loaded with dynamic self-help concepts. These were some of the first in this field. His books are available at faithalivebooks. The huge concept that I learned from him was the Copernican concept that the world didn’t revolve around me. It was my first step toward living life on life’s terms. In the movie “10 Million Ways to Die”, the hero (Jeff Bridges—one of my all-time favorites) is at the beach after his slip for his 6-month chip. In his acceptance, he says that he never knew that he lived in a world that he hadn’t created. I identified.

I was also slowly learning that although addiction has some common roots for everyone, we each had to wrestle our own demons. So recovery becomes as unique as we each are. The only being large enough to know what we each need is God. The most beautiful gift that we each receive in recovery is that every experience and trial that we have had is a tool to help others with his/her recovery.

The fear we experienced as children created frozen feelings in our adulthood. But in accepting ourselves, we need to remember that that fear protected us when we were small and had no clue how to respond in the world of adults who also were struggling with life plus addiction. So our fears are our protection that we no longer need. Letting go and letting God works much better for my life.