Anyone ever felt this way?

[RichBlack]

Yes I have, many, many, many times. As well as being a recovering PA I am also a recovering pessimist who is working hard to work on turning that around. Optimism is just better in every way. Quick analogy while it is on my mind. As I was sending out grad school applications I pretty much did so with the mind set of, well "I might get in if hell freezes over", because of a bad sophmore year in college that brought down my GPA. Didn't spend nearly the same amound of time praising myself for the following semester GPAs of 3.0, 3.5, and finishing with a 3.8. All I could think about was the big fat 2.8 cumulative G.P.A. written in big fat letters on my transcript. Guess what? One of the graduate schools has not only replied with a "maybe", but is also giving me a chance to write an essay to prove my ability as a student. I just got an email from another inviting me for an interview. Yes, we all make mistakes. In this story, my mistake was a bad sophmore year. But life is full of opportunity. If I had said, I will never make it to graduate school, might as well not bother with applications, guess what would happen. Nothing. But I didn't. I sent applications out. And now I have heard back from two of them. Recovery is the same way. Mistakes will happen, the important thing is that you learn from them. You are not your addiction. You can beat this. I'm rooting for you!

Rich

[Teemo]

Yechezkel,

I'm rooting for you, too. I'm going to add one more idea about not giving up, a factor that is working for me right now: None of us knows exactly how much time we have on this earth to get it right. I'd like to think I can keep trying and failing many more times and still come out of this at some point with a real life. But, frankly, I'm scared to think my time will be up before I have lived with some real recovery. For me, today is an opportunity to move one step forward in sobriety, and hopefully recovery. I'm going to take the opportunity I have been given. My life is worth it. Your life is worth it. Let's do this right, and do it now.

Teemo

[Yechezkel]

Thank you guys :)