"A Promise Made and a Promise Kept" by Stan Worthley

Photo copyright 2015 Gary Miller

I promise I will not let you down, I promise things will get better, I promise this will be the last time, and I promise I will get help: all promises I have made and all I have broken. As an addict I have made and broken so many that the word is not only meaningless to the people I have made them to but to me as well. I can't count the amount of times I have made one knowing that as the words were coming off my lips I had no intention of keeping them. This is not the way I was taught to treat people, things were not always this way but things happen and people change. I know I was sick and that my illness had taken complete  control of everything in my life, but I knew that the only way to get better was to face it and I was not ready at the time. I hate to use the sayings, but it is true " we are only as sick as our secrets." It was not until I lost everything and was left with only my secrets that I truly found out how sick I was. 
 It was then that I made a promise to my self. I was going to stop the pain. No longer would I hide at the bottom a bottle, be it booze or pills I was done. I know the dangers of dark secrets mixed with sobriety, I had tried it before and failed. This time I will no longer let my past control my life. I found the help I needed but I was told what I already knew, this was not going to be easy. Sobriety would have to come first mixed with some tools to deal with the past. It was slow at first and looking like it was all going to fail again. I had seen a flyer for a writing class and mentioned it in a session and was asked if I thought I could write about what I could not talk about. I made a promise that day to go outside my comfort zone and write about my experiences. It was then that I found out that by giving away my story I released its hold over me.