The Prize Must Be Love

“Take a look in the mirror, look at yourself
But don’t look too close ‘cause you just might see
The person you hate the most.”
Natalie Cole, Take A Look

Sad to say, but when the average addict looks in the mirror, they more often than not see the person that they hate the most. Or so they think. Truth is that the person they think they are seeing in the mirror isn’t really THAT person at all. No, they aren’t seeing themselves. They are only seeing all of the negative, hateful judgments that they have made against themselves.

I don’t know anyone who has liked looking in the mirror less than me. From the time I was a child, when I looked in a mirror, I saw all of the judgments that my parents and others had made against me. I accepted and then adopted those judgments as my own. And I used them again and again to persecute myself every time I had to face a mirror.

Recovery has taught me a good lesson, though. That lesson is summed up in a further lyric from the song Take A Look: “Nobody, nobody wins when the prize is hate… love, love, love is the way.”

I’ve learned to look past the hateful judgments that surface whenever I see myself in a mirror. One by one, I have rejected the judgments that others placed on me. I no longer accept them. And I am learning to let go of the hateful self-judgments that have always been of my own making. I realize that I can never win in this life as long as the prize for looking in the mirror is self-hatred. The prize must be love.

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