Letting Go of the Old Me: Recovery as a Practice of Becoming
There’s a moment in recovery when we realize:
We’re not just giving up a substance — we’re giving up an identity.
For years, I clung to the image of the person I thought I had to be.
The pastor. The provider. The one who had it all together.
That image earned me affirmation in public — but in private, it was suffocating.
I wasn’t pretending, exactly. I was trying so hard to live into a version of myself I believed others needed me to be.
I wore that version like a second skin, so well and for so long that I forgot who I was underneath.
And somewhere deep inside, I was lost.
Disconnected from my heart.
Afraid to admit that the identity I had built was no longer sustainable — and maybe never had been.
At times, I even began to question what I was preaching.
Was I speaking words I no longer fully believed?
Was I offering messages of grace and transformation while quietly withholding both from myself?
That quiet dissonance — between what I said and what I lived — only deepened the ache inside.
Some mornings, I would look in the mirror and barely recognize the person staring back.
I would ask myself, “Who am I, really?”
Not the version shaped by expectations, titles, or theology — but the person beneath it all.
And I began to wonder: What do I truly believe?
Not what I had been taught, or told, or trained to say — but what truth actually lived in my bones.
Those questions were disorienting. But they were also the beginning of something honest.
Letting go of that version of me didn’t happen in one dramatic moment.
It wasn’t a sudden shedding of skin.
It was a slow unraveling.
And at first, the unraveling was terrifying.
Who am I without that title? That image? That certainty?
But over time, the unraveling gave way to something softer.
A deeper truth. A quieter strength.
I began to discover that what’s underneath isn’t broken — just buried.
Recovery, for me, has been about remembering who I was before the world told me who I had to be.
It’s been about releasing shame, loosening my grip on perfection, and choosing presence over pretense.
Not becoming someone new — but returning to someone true.
Today, I no longer need to earn my worth with titles or achievements.
I no longer need to hide the mess — because it’s in the mess that I found my message.
I honor the old me — not with attachment, but with gratitude.
He got me this far. He did the best he could.
But now, it’s time to keep walking — lighter, freer, and more awake.
Because the truth is: letting go of the old me made space for the real me to finally come home.
