Today I want to talk about an important topic that affects so many individuals on their journey to healing - overcoming stigma and shame in our recovery.
These are unfortunately common struggles with people in recovery. We worry that people will look at our addictions as a moral failing and that by talking about it we will certainly experience judgment, discrimination, and rejection.
Out of fear of this, for many years I kept my past hidden from many people. Like it was a dirty secret I didn’t want anybody to know about. And with each person I chose to hide it from, the stigma and shame only grew.
But what happens if we are open and honest about our past? Are people really going to judge us as we fear? Could recovering out loud instead of anonymously, start to remove the stigma and shame around our own recovery and recovery in general?
That is what we are going to talk about today.
