How do you share self-worth? How do you keep a group of people who have seemingly decided that their lives are not worth living (at least not feeling) from losing hope that progress is possible? I remind them of exactly that point. These are our lives. Our one and only chance to experience being a human on this Earth. It’s that important. We are that important. We are in it, now, and we want to do more than survive. We want to experience hope, joy, success, and love. We want to find a way to engage and belong. To do that, we must remember that we are aspirational at our core. That even those of us with steel hearts have tenderness buried inside.

Recovery (more specifically, addiction) puts us in the unique position to dig deeper and do the work of uncovering who we are. We do this because, whether we realize it or not, we have hope for becoming better versions of ourselves.

There is nothing more exhausting than being buried by active addiction. The cycle of sickness and pleasure, anticipation and relief, the damage to your nervous system in one day that non-addicts might never experience in an entire lifetime. The desperation morphs us into unrecognizable monsters, but only after we have thoroughly devoured any semblance of a life worth putting back together. Most of us literally start from scratch. We have nothing, but what’s worse, we feel like nothing.

The first step is to get sober.

Quite literally, stop using drugs or alcohol, quit with the shopping or porn, running or sex…whatever you’re addicted to, you have to stop long enough to learn why you need that relief to begin with. Get help with this step from your doctor or a rehab, from others who have stopped indulging in that reprieve long enough to discover themselves. The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain. Stay sober long enough to find out your answer.

“Addiction is manifested in any behavior that a person craves, finds temporary relief or pleasure in but suffers negative consequences as a result of, and yet has difficulty giving up. In brief: craving, relief, pleasure, suffering, impaired control.” Dr. Gabor Maté defines addiction this way and explains that we’re asking the wrong question. It doesn’t matter what you’re addicted to or how long you’ve spent hooked; the question is what did your addiction do for you? What did it offer? What pain did it ease? What about it did you like or crave?

Inevitably the answers are about relieving stress and emotional pain, escaping, belonging, and connection. Human conditions of suffering. We are hardwired to avoid feeling pain and addiction is simply an attempt to do just that. It’s not a disease or some kind of moral failure, addiction is a solution to the problem of pain. The sooner we can understand that the sooner we can start digging.

This is your moment of repair.

Your healing. Take the time to understand what hurt you and instead of bandaging your wounds with a shot or a pill, tenderly clean and mend them for good.

The dig requires a change in mindset. The guilt, shame, and regret so often attached to addiction are no longer serving you. Stop seeing your addiction as a waste of time, simply acknowledge that it exists. In the past. And leave it there. Accept your missteps and stop looking in the mirror to see your failures. The destruction of your history will only hurt, instead accept your past as a collection of worthy experiences to create your future. Don’t abandon your story, mine it for truths to carry with you.

What you bring into your new life, packed tightly with your values and protected from judgment, is the experience of recovery. Your strength. The lessons you’ve learned. This is now your most valuable possession. It holds your power, your insight, and self-worth. Dust it off. It will direct you to your future if only you’ll listen.

Acceptance.

Recognizing our value (or self-worth) is possible when we fully accept things, just as they are. Instead of ignoring, avoiding, or wishing the situation were different, we see reality for what it is and invite it in with compassion.

Reseach shows that there are four types of self-worth, four areas for us to explore during our dig.

The first is security and safety.

We may have experienced times during our past where we felt either physically or emotionally unsafe. Childhood and domestic abuse are common big-T traumas among those of us in recovery. Others of us suffered from a variety of small-t trauma in childhood and active addiction. No matter the specifics, if someone or something caused you to feel insecure or unsafe, your self-worth was likely rattled, cracked, and possible even broken. While we each take our own journey towards forgiveness (and may never even consider it), we help ourselves to heal by accepting that we were hurt, and it was not our fault. Your job now is not to replay the damage, just understand that it happened and rebuild yourself stronger than you ever were.

One additional piece of wisdom regarding safety: be careful to create a sense of security for yourself so you don’t fall into someone else’s.

The second type of self-worth lives beneath your values.

Start here. Begin with defining what kind of person you are. Do you treasure time alone or prefer to fill your life with people? Are you patient, someone who sees the good in everyone? Perhaps you’re just and fair? Do you appreciate hard-work or compassion? Unearth the values that make you who you are and put your energy here.

Competence is the third type of self-worth.

It’s your capacity to grow in what you’re good at, your expertise in specific areas. Here it’s important to remember to work on the skills we have, not the skills others say we need. While it’s true, we can learn to do most things, some even well…would you really want to spend your days working alone behind a computer if being with people energizes you and you love helping others?

The last type of self-worth comes from belonging.

We know it’s importance to feel connected but belonging if more than just feeling comfortable around others. It’s about being understood. Those people you can have a whole conversation with using only your eyes? Find them and nurture those relationships. Allow the energy from people who love you and see you for who you are to fuel your growth. Discover where you feel at home in order to learn more about who you are.

These four areas of self-worth feel foreign when we first enter into recovery. That’s ok. Don’t rush the process. Archeologists spend years digging up the past and sifting through the dirt to tell the stories of those who lived before us. The excavations in the Agora of ancient Athens have been going on every year since 1931, each season something new is discovered.

Addiction is not for nothing.

It’s a connection to your future. It gave us the opportunity to dig deeper, clear away the dirt and rebuild with what we treasure. Recovery gives us the space to become a better version of ourselves. Allow yourself the time to quarry and question. Accept the past and know the project of uncovering your story will be a test. Know that you’re worth it and gouge through the irrational beliefs that tell you there’s no point. Then with experience as your most trusted tool, uncover the abundance that’s been in you all along.

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• Sober and brave. Sobbrave.
• Table of Contents
  • My First Time.
  • Recovery and being brave: how to set goals and live creatively.
  • What is rational recovery?

• How to survive wildfires (and 2024.)
• Unmasking: choosing to live a more congruent life.
• Truth: Learning to Trust and the practice of Satya.
• Acceptance and Self-worth: the best parts of addiction.
• Growth and Fear of Success.