Individuals battling with any type of active addiction often think they’re invincible. They frequently reassure themselves that everything is ok because they haven’t had a truly bad experience stemming from it. They generally will continue holding that false sense of cockiness about themselves as they descend even deeper into their addiction. But what they don’t realize is that nothing bad has happened to them “YET”.
In the 12-Step recovery world, the “Yet’s” are the things that always end up forcing a person to face their addiction and find healing from it. Unfortunately, those things are never pleasant and instead are usually quite tragic. For whatever the reason, a person suffering from any addiction always seems to have to be totally broken before they will seek recovery from it. Many of those “Yet’s” will cause an addict to become that way and sadly, it doesn’t have to be like this. But for whatever the reason, in almost every case I’ve ever seen in recovery, an addict will go to the brink of destruction before seeking help. They even go through experiencing many of those “Yet’s” before they finally become powerless enough to want to change.
Here are some examples of those “Yet’s” that exist from engaging in addictions:
1. Being kicked out of one’s home.
2. Banks repossessing personal belongings.
3. Being arrested and sentenced to jail.
4. Developing extremely serious health conditions.
5. Being fired from your job.
6. Losing a long-term relationship.
7. Contracting a disease.
8. Living off the streets.
9. Accidentally or purposely killing another.
10. Having thugs constantly chase after you for their money.
And this is only a fraction of the tragic things that have happened to people who have become addicted to something. I thank God that the worst that needed to happen to me was to develop some temporary, but very serious health issues to get me to stop my own pattern of self-destruction with addictions. For one of the men I’ve been working with in recovery though, he wasn’t so fortunate.
He decided that his pain wasn’t great enough so he went back out for one more high. Unfortunately, it landed him back in jail, which was the one place that was his greatest fear of ever going back to. Ironically, he’s lucky though. Some others I’ve known who decided to go back out one more time never came back at all because they overdosed and died that time. Truly, that is the worst “yet” that can happen to anyone from being active in any type of addiction.
So if you happen to be someone who is battling one yourself right now, I encourage you to take a moment, breathe, and ask yourself this. What kind of “Yet” needs to happen to you before you finally wake up and realize just how sick you really are? And what kind of “Yet” needs to knock you down enough to where you finally will do what it takes to free yourself from that bondage? I hope and pray for your sake that God will enlighten you before the “Yet’s” tear you apart even more or end up taking your life altogether.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
