Thought for the Week

Timothy D. Stein, MFT, CSAT

December 17, 2018

Vacuum under the car mats.

There is superficial change and real change.  You can wash the outside of the car but not touch the inside. It looks clean until you open the door.  You can superficially clean the inside of the car but it is still not really clean.  True clean is cleaning even where other people don’t normally look, like under the car mats where the hidden grime lurks.  Recovery is the same.  We can make changes that look good on the surface such as being honest when we think we’ll be caught but keeping a secret if we think we can get away with it.  Or, we can really get rid of the grime like being rigorously honest even if we think no one will know.

When have I held onto old behaviors because I thought no one would find out?  Whether those behaviors have been discovered yet or not, what has been the impact?  What gifts await me as I live my recovery even if I could get away with old behaviors?