I've been meaning to write this post forever and finally have a spare moment for the first time in the last few months!
Life is so weird.
So, I made a big decision and decided to leave all of my education, training, licensing, and professional experience behind and take a leap of faith. I left my career in Mortgage.
This was a decision that I knew I would make one day, I just didn't think it would be so soon.
I started working in mortgage about 4 years ago. Right as I got into mortgage is when my addiction really took off and got insane. I coped with a lot of the stress of my job by checking out and getting high. The only way that I knew how to cope with that type of stress was by getting high, because that's how I had always done it since I had started. My addiction and my job were so intertwined.
I would get sober, then the pieces of my job and frustrations that I had would just chip away at me until I couldn't take it any more. I would lose it, and relapse, and completely self destruct. Then, I would get sober and change myself on the inside. Then I would put myself back in that same exact environment and stress, and the cycle would begin again.
When I started working at US Bank fresh out of treatment, I saw it so clearly. I had conviction to stay sober. I wanted to be sober and was willing to do whatever that took. I was willing to do hard things to stay alive. However, the environment would eat away at me. The stress felt so overwhelming, because I didn't know how to cope with it without wanting to check out. I realized that I was setting myself up for failure. As I noticed this, I realized that I really had no other choice. It became so clear to me one day. It was my career, or my life. My career was not my life. Recovery was my life now. Recovery meant I could stay alive. My career was killing me inadvertently.
Although I was changed on the inside, my life and stress on the outside was the exact same.
Although it was so clear to me, it was still a very hard decision. It really scared me. I didn't want to lose what I had worked so hard to build. But I didn't want to die either.
Finally, I just took a leap of faith and trusted myself and my conviction for recovery and my life. I think it was the first time I loved myself more than I loved trying to appear a certain way or be a certain way. It was the first time I genuinely made a decision for ME and for no other reason. I didn't care how it looked. I didn't care about my title or the company I worked for. I cared about myself and my happiness above all.
What a break through.
So now, I am walking a new path and starting a new career. I am really excited. I feel really good. Although I am scared sometimes or worried that I lost something that was great, I know that I have potential for even better in not only my career, but in my life. I trust myself and my decision wholeheartedly.
While some days I still have a break down and don't know what the crap I am doing, I always come back to the piece of me that trusts and knows this is where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing right now.
I feel amazing. I don't feel like someone who is living in fear of relapsing all the time. I don't live in fear of my addiction. Yes, I respect my addiction and the potential it has if I don't do the things I know I need to do to stay healthy and safe. However, I no longer feel like I am defined by an addiction or defined by being in recovery. I am someone who has struggled with an addiction. I am someone who now lives in recovery. That is a very important part of who I am and what makes me the person I am today. But I am so much more than that. I am not defined by a disease that I live with. I have so many great characteristics and have the potential, ability and talent to do great things in my life beyond struggling with an addiction. It's really exciting.
I'm really stoked for great things ahead!
