It seems like everyone forms an opinion based on an addicts past choices and terrible decisions. Its a hard thing to deal with. Always wanting us to prove to them. Isn't it more important we prove to ourselves ?
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Oh yeah, both things you said have a lot of merit. It's natural for people to judge us based on our past and always be waiting for the other shoe to drop when we're in recovery. Personally, I disappointed so many people time and again that they stopped expecting real change. Now that I feel the change actually has happened, the only way I can prove that to others is to build a new history of doing the right things, showing that the change into recovery really has happened. As they say, talk is cheap.
And you're also right when you say that our own view of ourselves really is the most important! Even if people around us have forgiven us and we've made amends, the past cannot be changed. So the most important opinion I care about is my own. It sounds selfish but that mindset has set me free. And unexpectedly it has also freed me to be a more authentic, positive influence on the people I love and who love me.
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Yes, I agree 100%! After all, we're the ones who have to live our own lives. I can't blame others for formulating opinions based on my past obsessive and compulsive behavior, though . But ifI stay clean, a day at a time, I get to prove them wrong and have what's turning into, for me, a great life!!
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