chasing wildfires: the journey of loving an addict
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8%
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wildfires must destroy if they are to survive
26%
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how could you possibly learn from your pain if you never listen when it calls to you?   you won’t ever escape it, so you might as well sit with it and see what it has to say.
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boys are born into this world and we rip emotion from them, as easy as plucking petals from a flower. we don’t let them be soft, convince them it’s a weakness. damaged little boys turn into incomplete men.
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you prepare to go to war but the battle was never truly with me. it was only a distraction from the wars inside your soul.
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I wish you could see if you would just take my hand, I’d help you to your feet and together we’d stop drowning.
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the thing is, you can rise above the clouds to escape what is hurting you, but nothing lasts forever and eventually you have to come back down.
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how can I possibly explain to my heart that you no longer exist, when my eyes tell my brain you are standing right in front of me
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naming me as the villain in your story became very easy once you destroyed every mirror on earth.
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as venom spews from your mouth, and injected into my veins, I catch a small glimpse of your pain and for a second I can understand what it’s like to be you, for all the pain you inflict only shows small glimpses of the pain you feel inside.
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we sit in the dark with only the moon to illuminate our faces. I can almost pretend that I still know you. I will stay up all night just to experience the illusion, relishing the past before the sun comes bursting through revealing a stranger next to me that used to resemble all that I knew about love.
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you give in to your cravings. I let you back in.   -          two types of relapse
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you walked past her every day, but didn’t notice she was shrinking in size, weaker in strength and losing her voice.   you swept her into the shadows and let others purchase your time, for she didn’t possess the currency you now required.
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we traveled through this fight hand in hand.   I held onto you, you held onto me.   we are now at a crossroads, you go left while I go right.   maybe one day we’ll find our way back again.
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if love were enough to save someone he’d be okay. but I know now that my love cannot fix him, cannot save him, or convince him to fix or save himself.
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I was so terrified of the pain I would experience from missing you, but I realized it was no different than what I was feeling while you were in the same room.
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the path to self-destruction seemed easier than the path to healing. but the only way to not feel the pain was to not cause it anymore and to find the proper ways to fill the voids in your heart.
78%
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you may not be everything that you want to be when you’re sober, but you are one hundred thousand percent everything that you don’t want to be when you’re in active addiction. this is not a promise, because promises can be easily broken. this is a guarantee: do not expect anything different
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perhaps recovery is like a construction site: everything must be removed in preparation for the new. the ground must be dug into and overturned deep enough to uncover the demons and discover the triggers and underlying causes. a new stronger foundation is formed with brand new skills learned from past mistakes.   people, places, and things are erased since they are no longer welcome to bust through like wrecking balls, destroying the process. the newly built rooms are still empty but this time they can be filled with beautiful new trinkets, things that you would be proud to show and not hide.
86%
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a moment comes along and attempts to define us, and splits us into two parts: a before and an after we’ll come across old photos and categorize them as such… before the incident and after. our very own inner death, we now bear the responsibility of deciding how the second part of our life will be lived.
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it’s a different kind of strength that comes from a different kind of pain.   -          loving an addict
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this is our forever war   and we’ll never stop fighting   -          for the addicts in recovery and the ones that love them
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you feel storms raging inside so off to the forest you go, chasing wildfires demons calling from the flames within. you’ve fallen to the ground. they whisper lies. this is a battle that you can never win. they remind you of tales, speaking hopelessness and shame. you didn’t mean to give your soul away, but don’t give in. don’t listen this time. you can still fight, still rise with dirt between your toes and ash in your hair. you must stand, turn away from the flames, emerge from the forest a cleansed man and then, only then, can you truly return to me.