Who Can You Rescue? No One But Yourself
No one can help us until we are first willing to help ourselves—not even God or our Higher Power. I grew up hearing “God helps those who help themselves,” and I’ve learned through recovery that this is certainly true. Neither God nor anyone else could help me until the day I finally cried out “I need help! I don’t know what’s wrong with me! Why can’t I build good relationships? God help me!” I finally decided on that day that I had to seek therapy. For years I had refused because my parents had raised me to believe it was taboo. My mother was very much like the Mary Tyler Moore character in the 1980 film Ordinary People . She was horrified over the idea that anyone in our family could be considered crazy enough to need a therapist. It was shameful to her, after all, what would the neighbors say? Well in October of 1995, I decided I didn’t care anymore what the neighbors might say. Screw them. I needed help and I was going to seek it out. So I did. And once I was ready to help...