Each individual has a personal responsibility for his or her own self care and journey through recovery. Making strides toward achieving your goals will require great courage, effort and support. By understanding and giving meaning to your experiences, you can begin to identify coping strategies and healing processes that promote your own wellness.
Now that we've covered that, let me get to another aspect of responsibilty. Whatever happened to people being responsible? Over the past few weeks I have heard of and witnessed people coming to CVAB and playing the game of "What can I get away with?"
Now, we have a bunch of people wanting and needing to make good use of CVAB's services but there are a few, very few, that want to play a game around responsibility. They tend to stretch community norms, try to hide their digital indescretions, or throw verbal stones at someone else as they complain about things. It leads to peers who are working together at CVAB having to continually try to put an end to the games and it takes away from the great things happening in the lives of so many.
Part of recovery is responsibility and it is important for each person to courageously take responsibility for his or her movement toward wellness. It is equally important to consider the way we act toward and with one another as part of that responsibility. I often quote one of our peers who used to work at CVAB and I think it applies here: "Having a mental illness is no excuse for being an ass."
