Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.

Proverbs‬ ‭28‬:‭26‬

Or maybe not…yet.

The last thing I needed to do when I sobered up was any more of the pity-party, self-centered rationalization, pompous, immature and grossly negligent theatrics that I called thinking.

I even went so far as to call it “deep thinking”.

No, what I needed was a swift kick in the butt to wake up and return to the roots of the faith I’d been exposed to all my life.

See, I never disbelieved it. I’d seen evidence of the faith in the many good examples I’d grown up with. I was fortunate to be exposed to both great parents and good Christian leaders all through childhood and into early adulthood.

I just thought I could get away with going my own way for a bit.

Most of us think this way. And it gets a lot of us killed.

I always knew I could retreat, but the trouble is, once you actually need to retreat you don’t really want to anymore. And once you want to, it’s because you realize you’re truly lost.

Being lost sucks.

It’s a sensation we are not familiar with. We have the infinite resources of the internet in our pockets and are baffled by the idea of not knowing where we are, much less how on earth to get back to safety.

It wouldn’t be as bad if we could just survive in the wild, but as we realize that we really will starve in the woods of our addiction without retreating to help, then the panic of our impending doom is hopefully enough to stir us into action.

It’s at this point that thinking will do nothing.

We need to make some noise because our only chance of survival is finding the help that’s looking for us and following them back home.

God, help me follow the path back to safety.