Six months sober, a man describes losing a child and a loved one, then rebuilding from rock bottom. He compares recovery to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, and says we can't control who leaves but we can control showing up each day to build something new.
I saw a guy post today that he was 45 days sober and felt like he'd lost everything. I told him, I'm 6 months sober and unfortunately pretty qualified in the losing everything department. I couldn't get sober for the woman I love or the daughter I'd die for. I needed my entire life to catch fire before I finally noticed the smoke. But I told him something I'm trying to believe myself. The caterpillar has to go into the darkness before it becomes a butterfly. Right now, I feel less like a butterfly and more like an emotionally unstable burrito. But here's the thing. We can't control who loves us, who leaves us, or whether they come back. What we can control is what we do tomorrow. I'm trying to show up every single day and build a life I'm excited to live again. And maybe that's what all of us are doing. We might not get our old lives back, but that doesn't mean we can't build something beautiful out of what's left.
