Why are Mondays so special….
Mondays are special because when you are in recovery, they mark another milestone, getting beyond that period of the week when society does it’s best to convince you, you should be letting off steam, letting your hair down, you should be rewarding yourself with poison, when idle hands make the devils work.
As committed as I am to sobriety and abstinence, I would be lying if I said the weekend doesn’t have it’s challenges. It’s a time when the mind wanders, when temptation could easily have a chance of creeping in, when your subconscious mind is ready and willing to walk you back down that well trodden path, heading to your demise, if your conscious mind isn’t strong enough, or just for a second lets weakness take over.
When you become aware of your weaknesses, it is important to remove people that encourage it. Misery love company, and you are complicit in your own suffering if you don’t acknowledge the people and environments that continue to encourage behaviour that leads to suffering in your life.
What doesn’t seem like an issue for some, can actually be a massive issue for others, and sometimes those that don’t identify these issues are just living in denial, allowing societal standards to determine their choices, regardless of how it makes them feel, a lot of people don’t even sit with their body and their emotions for long enough to determine how certain things actually make them feel, lost in an auto-pilot journey, that props up hangovers and the fear from one Monday morning to the next.
For me, certainly towards the latter years of drinking and drug taking none of it was enjoyable, and even when I was younger, I don’t think it was really enjoyable then either, but I was just too naive to realise what I was part of. I was actively partaking in self sabotage every time I picked up a drink, put out a line, or rolled a joint, and I had to remove certain people from my life, or at the very least keep them at arms length as I used their opinions to cushion my conscience with justifications. I would find myself gravitating towards people that were in self destruct mode, drinking for longer than me, caning it harder than me, smoking more than me all so I could hold a measuring stick up to my own actions, and comfort myself with the fact that I was ‘not as bad’ as the next guy/girl. It’s funny how your mind works when you are trying to convince yourself that you aren’t actively destroying your body with poison.
So your circle should get smaller when your changing, you need to distance yourself from anchors that pull you back into a life that no longer serves you, remind you of habits and behaviours you want to forget, and gives your unconscious mind triggers that it needs to avoid when building new habits. Your change will hold a mirror of accountability up to those around you, people don’t like that, they don’t like being confronted with change when they ain’t ready for it, which is why you need to take a step back, and it shouldn’t be gradual either, it should be instant, an instant separation of you from the people and things that allow weakness to creep in.
You are responsible for the shield you give yourself that keeps weakness from making its way back into your life, and if you wake up on a Monday morning knowing you’ve succeeded once again in staying true to what serves your future, then you my friend, will appreciate just how special Monday mornings can be.
Much love,
Emma x
