Al-Anon daily reflection ·

Facing What Haunts Me

I needed the willingness to face things – some things that have haunted me from the past and other things about myself that I may discover that I don't like.

Paths to Recovery, p. 45

There are things in my inventory I can write about easily — surface patterns, familiar defects, the stuff I've already admitted to myself. Then there are the other things. The ones I skip over. The ones that make my pen stop mid-sentence. The memories I've pushed so far down I almost convinced myself they weren't there.

Almost. Because they show up anyway — in my reactions, my triggers, the moments where my response is bigger than the situation deserves. The things that haunt me don't disappear just because I refuse to write them down. They just run my life from the shadows.

My sponsor told me I didn't have to excavate everything at once. Just be willing to face one thing I've been avoiding. Not fix it. Not resolve it. Just let it exist on the page instead of only in my body.

That willingness — to stop running from what haunts me and let it be seen — is where the freedom starts. Not in the answers, but in the facing.

Practice

I can write down one thing I've been avoiding — not to solve it, just to acknowledge it exists. Moving it from my body to the page is an act of courage, even if nothing else changes today.

Today’s Reminder

What I won't face doesn't go away. It just runs things from the dark.

More on courage

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Written by people with lived experience of someone else’s drinking who practice the Twelve Step program of recovery. Published by Daily Growth, LLC.

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