The fall season has always spoken to my soul. The crisp air, the shifting colors, the quiet reminder that nothing stays the same. For much of my life, change was something I resisted with all my strength. I thought recovery simply meant putting down the substance; if I could just manage abstinence, life would eventually fall into place. But real, lasting change asked me to walk into the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable.
I remember how tightly I gripped my reservations, the whispered lies my disease fed me that I was unique, an exception. I didn’t just struggle to accept that I could be addicted to drugs and alcohol; I believed I didn’t deserve real recovery or freedom like I saw so many others embracing. I held on to the fantasy that someday I could drink like a “normal person” and everything would be fine. I acted on that delusion, and it wasn’t long before I went back to the origin of my addiction and ended up on opiates again. I almost lost my life.
I was afraid of change because the unknown was terrifying. But eventually I reached a place where the fear of staying the same- sick, broken, and trapped- became greater than the fear of the unknown and of getting better. That was the shift. That’s when surrender finally became possible.
Families carry their own seasons of change. For years, I could feel the weight of their worry, their eyes waiting for the other shoe to drop. They loved me, cheered me on, and were scared in ways I couldn’t understand. That tension filled me with guilt and shame. Their fear was valid; I had given them reasons to brace for another fall. But over time, as I surrendered and stopped trying to perform recovery for applause, something shifted. I finally accepted that I deserved true recovery- not just abstinence, but freedom in body, character, and soul.
When I began to actually do the daily work, everything changed incrementally. Recovery stopped being a show and became a practice: wake up, choose better, be honest, make amends, and keep moving forward. I stopped waiting for the fall and started running barefoot through fields of possibility. Trust returned slowly, roots were planted, and healing started to take hold- not just in me, but in my family too.
Now, with the leaves turning and a wedding on the horizon next month, I can see how those seasons of discomfort led to surprising beauty. I never imagined I’d marry my best friend and build a life with someone who loves me for who I am, sober and whole. That kind of miracle felt impossible when I was clinging to delusions and nearly lost my life because of them.
If you’re reading this and walking through your own season of change, know this: surrender is scary, but it opens the space for something better. Change will ask you to get uncomfortable. It will ask you to give up old stories about yourself. But if you keep choosing the work, day after day, the landscape will change beneath your feet. And you may find yourself running through leaves of change, into a brand-new landscape and garden of growth you never imagined possible.
To be continued…
Jamie, in Recovery
