The first thing I stopped consuming was social media content — outside of Instagram and Threads, which I’ve unapologetically curated into echo chambers full of pro-recovery/therapy profiles and fellow blue hearts. I went and deactivated Twitter, which should’ve been done 10 years ago, but I digress…
The first thing I started creating (before this post) was a plan to GTFO of Pennsylvania. I mean, not permanently, though my hubby did come downstairs early on the morning after, talking about Canada and going to live on a lake (he’s a keeper, and the only thing keeping me from going full 4B 😉). I asked if Vermont would be a good compromise.
But what I actually did was book a round-trip flight to Chicago for the upcoming holiday. I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving since I lived at home, which would’ve been prior to my Northwestern graduation in…shoot, 1999? While I made a life for myself out in the world, after much wandering in the wilderness, my first instinct in times of crisis has always been to get my ass immediately back to my parents’ house.
All you folks in 12-step programs might recognize this as “pulling a geographic.” And yeah, guilty as charged! Running away is still my go-to self-soothing strategy, even though the lesson of “Wherever you go, there you are” has been hammered into my brain by the school of hard knocks over 20 years’ time.
The difference now, at 64 months sober, is awareness. And clarity. The understanding that each action/reaction is a choice, with consequences, and I am fully responsible for the choices I make and the consequences that come. Whether I weigh pro vs. con or act impulsively, whether I consciously break cycles or continue dysfunctional patterns, obey the commands of old programming or resist that pull and do something different — that is up to me. Each moment of my life presents a new opportunity, and sobriety equips me, empowers me, to seize it.
Continue reading “Resistance”
Jen Wielgus Journalism 