Barry

“But that person who is a two or a three was me last summer.”

TRANSCRIPT

There’s a thing I have up on my door into my room and I learnt it, I wrote it at the recovery group, and I do have a picture up on my door, it says “be thoughtful, be kind, be honest and be yourself”. For it’s a great leveler for me to still go to recovery group with Inspire because it, it lets me know where I’m at. I always say it’s a sad day if you go to bed and you haven’t learnt one new thing, and I will always learn one or two new things. Even if it’s a two-hour recovery group and everybody does their bit.  

Upon arrival you give a marker, a mark out of ten of how you’re feeling, upon arrival. And at the end of the group they do a kind of summary of where people are now feeling and some people say “the same” other people go up, but I almost feel guilty over the summer because I’m going and giving myself a nine out of ten or a ten out of ten ‘cause I’m just really buzzing with Inspire and life that I feel guilty because other people are coming and saying “I’m a two or a three” but that person at a two or a three, was me last summer and the summer before. 

And when I first tried Inspire, I remember going in to these groups and feeling I was a one or a two out of ten. Life was meaningless and now I feel bad for saying I’m a nine or a ten. One week I said a “ten plus” just ‘because I was just absolutely buzzing with life. But other people say to me “if you’re a ten or a nine just say it” because other people are, because there are some that go to the group that remember how I was a year or two ago. 

Some people can’t believe how well I have come along and sometimes I’m my own worst critic. I don’t accept, I don’t like hearing good things. I like hearing other people’s success stories. 

That kinda inner peace has taught me to be… then eventually start to like myself after nearly a year. And that steppingstone of liking myself has now led to me loving myself which is something I would never think I would have ever said in my life. 

But now actually, I love myself, but I love being alive and getting up every day and the potential that every day holds is wonderful. 

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