Plucking the Thorns

“I remember a time when I was quite prickly.

I told myself I was okay and played the part to the outside world, but inside I felt prickly and stuck. I didn’t know why, so I didn’t know what to do about it.

One day I made a decision that would be the most monumental decision of my life. I stopped drinking.

Alcohol was my friend and my favorite confidant. It was my courage, my strength, my big hug. It’s how I coped with the hard times and celebrated the good.

I put it down because it just wasn’t working anymore.

My prickly insides were getting quite painful.

The prickly on the inside, it turns out, had also pushed through as thorns on the outside.

Over the years after I got sober, I did some hard work. I really looked at myself and plucked those thorns out one by one.

It was grueling. I kept plucking them - painfully - until I finally realized there was a rose there all along.

I learned in healing myself that I could become the person I always was but couldn’t see.

My message to anyone reading this: if something is nagging at you - really nagging at you on the inside, look at you.

You may have some thorns to remove and I bet your rose will bloom.”

Shared with permission. Names and identifying details may be changed.

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Even in the mud, something is beginning.