And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel‬ ‭36‬‬:‭26‬

For a long time I prided myself on the cold demeanor I developed over the course of my addiction. It really started well before that, though, in my teenage angst years.

And perhaps, that is where addiction began—before the substances.

What constitutes addiction, after all?

If we are to take recovery literature at face value, there are at least two major components: a physical and a mental part. We are physically hooked and mentally obsessed by our drug of choice.

Further, we are driven to amazing lengths to continue pursuing our vice in the face of difficulty and broken relationships. We are driven by compulsion that emanates from a cold self-centered mess within us.

I believe the kindling for that mess was smoldering long before I took a drink.

I was primed with discontent and welcomed the dissonance that I thought was a precursor of adulthood.

Thankfully, we can change again! We can reverse the progression and are given this opportunity in myriad flavors.

Making steps toward a sober future doesn’t take more than willingness and a hair of hope. Being shown the way by others helps immensely.

Along the way, though, I had to concede that even in sobriety I was a pompous, immature teenager.

This may take a while. But when it does, it’s time to accept the new heart that is freely available. The transplant still hurts like hell, but it solidifies the bits of hope we’d begun to accumulate.

God, thank you for a new heart, a new life, a new perspective.