Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions

by Russell Brand

This program helps me to change my perspective when what I would do unabetted is justify my perspective staying the same – ‘If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got’. If you want change, you have to change. You have to make amends. This in the case of my stepdad meant two things, the first being forgiveness. This is pretty easy when you get into it. Here’s how: he is just a human being like me. He is not perfect, like me. It is not my job to adjudicate the world’s people and supply them with a template for how they should be. In fact it’s none of my business. There is only one human being I’m in control of and that is me, and that is where the effort must be concentrated. Forgiveness is a powerful spiritual tool, without it we are damned as individuals and as a people. Forgiveness means letting go. It means being willing to accept that we are all mortals flawed and suffering, imperfectly made and trying our best. That sometimes there is a collision of instinct. He was trying to live his life, have a relationship with my mother, work nights in a job he didn’t like and support another man’s son. He was doing his best. Am I unwilling to forgive? Am I determined that the world must be as I decree? Do I see a future in that way of thinking, especially when it’s done nothing but bring me pain so far? What am I holding on to? What is gained by withholding forgiveness,