Hope and Happiness Are in the NOW

“I am ashamed because I don’t know myself right now,

and I’m forty-three.”

John Grant, Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore?

Look around the room at any 12 Step meeting and you will see people of all age groups; from those in their late teens to those in their seventies. Of course it’s easy to sit amidst these people and compare ourselves. Maybe we are just now entering recovery and we’re 43 years old. We see people in the seats around us who are in their twenties and we immediately feel old beyond hope. Suddenly the floodgates to shame and regret fly open and we begin to drown in our self-pity.

We think “Wow, how did these kids get their act together so early in life? Why did it take me so long? I wish I hadn’t wasted so much of my life caught-up in my addictions and denial. If only I would have…” You can fill in your own regrets.

Go ahead, Get it off your chest—then let go of it. Everyone enters recovery with regrets. I was in my thirties when I finally hit-bottom, and I went through the “if only” period where I regretted losing so much of my youth. Initially, I felt sad and hopeless because there was no way to retrieve the great days of my youth from the past. And I wallowed in those regrets for a while. A little wallowing is necessary. It’s called grieving our losses. But you know when you have wallowed for too long because you become frozen in the past.

Eventually, I stopped looking back with regret and started appreciating the fact that I still had NOW to make my life better. As I let go of my shame and regret, I began to appreciate the NOW and I also began to look forward to a brighter future.

So I stopped being envious of people in my CODA groups who were younger than me. Instead of being jealous, I started congratulating younger people on the fact that they were willing to take big steps toward recovery while they were young.

Today, I don’t really even pay much attention to age differences in recovery circles. What’s important is that we’re all in a worldwide recovery circle together. We all have the NOW and we all have the hope of a brighter future. And that’s all we need. Nothing else is important, much less the long gone and never to be relived past.

What’s essential is not how old we are when we enter recovery, but where we go in our recovery from the day we enter. The important thing is 1) that we are willing to grow in every positive direction, from loving ourselves better to building new lives filled with love and life-giving relationships; and 2) that we are willing to do the WORK required, each and every day, to make our lives better.

So if you’re sitting and wishing you had entered recovery at a younger age, if you’re 43 and filled with shame because you don’t even know yourself yet, that’s OK. Feel the regret, grieve your loses and then let go of them and stand tall in the NOW, knowing that your life is really just beginning—and it will be great in the long run!