Making a Comeback After a Fall
By Damodar Roe
Turn a Setback Into a Comeback
Falling back into old habits is one of the most confusing and humiliating feelings in the world. For some time, you were confident to charge ahead, like an athlete walking across a tightrope—focused, sincere, and expecting to reach the other side. But with a single wrong step, you fell down onto the unforgiving earth. But it wasn’t just your streak that was broken—it was your hope and self-esteem. It seems like, in just a few moments, you’ve lost all the progress you that worked so hard for. You start to question everything: “Why can’t I stop? Should I change my strategy? Should I just give up?” It can be overwhelming to think about. With the fear that nothing will ever work—especially when you feel like you’ve tried it all—you doubt that you can ever reach freedom through self-control.
You’re not alone in feeling this way. There are countless people who have overcome addiction, and if you ask them, they’ll tell you they had similar moments of despair. But what divides the people who remain stuck from those who eventually break free? A big part of the answer is learning how to make a comeback after a fall. If you haven’t learned this yet, then every failure stacks up into a more and more intimidating pile of “evidence” that you might as well stop trying because the effort is pointless waste that only makes the disappointment of failure that much more painful.
Addiction is like an enemy who poses as a friend. It’s not effective to simply condemn it, or condemn yourself for resorting to it, without understanding what makes his offers so appealing in the first place. A lot of times, there are needs in our lives that are unmet and pains we that carry around unresolved because we don’t know how to deal with them. Addiction helps us to forget these pains, but it doesn’t help us to actually solve the problems that cause them. What we really need to do, especially after a fall, is to reflect on why we do what we do. What pain are we trying to avoid? What do we need to address in our lives to heal and grow? What do we need to be honest with ourselves about? What help do we need? When you start to ask questions like these, you set yourself on a new path where there’s hope for real change. Then you won’t have to fall for the same old tricks again. You will learn from your mistakes, prepare for similar challenges in the future, and gradually break free from the need to depend on this false friend.
Therefore, instead of doubting yourself after a setback, or spiraling into shame, you should embrace this moment as an opportunity to learn and grow. Mistakes are never final. They simply mean that you’ve discovered a vulnerability, and that’s the first step towards fixing it. Then this setback, that seemed like a the end of the road, will actually become part of your great comeback.
reasons to be Hopeful
Now, as you pick yourself up from this setback, what you really need isn’t just a fresh start. You need reasons to feel hopeful that things can be different if you get up and keep trying. Fortunately, every setback carries with it some lessons that can make you wiser when you accept them.
The first lesson is this not to let pride convince you that you’re invincible. The illusion of invincibility makes you callous to obstacles on the path. Then, when you inevitably trip and fall over these obstacles, it will shatter your pride and leave you feeling confused. Then, you might swing to the opposite extreme of feeling ashamed and hopeless. Like they say: Pride comes before the fall. But if don’t take success for granted or let it get to your head, you can remain cautious and avoid falls. Therefore, instead of thinking you’re invincible, or thinking you’re forever hopeless, study the terrain ahead that you need to cross, know your strengths and weaknesses, and proceed with caution.
The second lesson is that breaking free from addiction isn’t about dramatic, once-and-for-all declarations. You show your commitment by making small and consistent choices that, over time, make you stronger and your cravings weaker. You won’t reach the tipping point overnight. But the best place to start is being honest with yourself and people whom you trust to help you. This is a strong foundation for your recovery journey, and it’s absolutely necessary before you can make real progress. Otherwise, if you’re not willing to let go of pride, shame, or dishonesty, then unfortunately, your ideas of change are still just wishful thinking. Once you commit to honesty and learn from your mistakes though, you can graduate from weakness to strength, and turn wishful thinking into real progress. This will give you a clear path forward, along with the hope that trying is actually worth it.
A Worthy Goal
Repeated failures can break your spirit, and make you afraid to pursue complete success. Giving in to this fear makes you give up, procrastinate, or settle for strange half-measures. For example, you might binge on junk food, but at the same time, try to avoid gaining weight by spitting it out after chewing. You might try to quit hard drugs, but only for a week, when you really ought to quit completely. Half-hearted goals like these will leave you feeling spiritually adrift—not fully committed to your values but also restricted from enjoying without restriction. Your mind is left in a state of confusion and self-conflict.
Half-hearted attempts, procrastination, and giving up are the results of doubting you’re capable of real success. But failure never has to be permanent. Rather, it’s the result of not knowing how to succeed (ignorance) and not having the power to follow through (weakness). This is great news because ignorance can be overcome by developing knowledge, while weakness can be overcome by developing strength and support. Instead of assuming that you’re incapable of reaching a worthy goal, therefore, assume that you simply don’t know how to get there yet, and that you need to grow stronger through practice. This assumption will empower you to aspire for a worthy goal, even after failing at it before. Rather than spitting food out to avoid the calories, you simply moderate your eating. Rather than trying to quit hard drugs for a week, you aim to quit for good because they don’t actually merit any place in your life.
The power of a worthy goal is that it gives you something that no setback can take away—the fact that it’s meaningful to you. Even when you fall short of that goal, you can still remember why you ultimately want to achieve it. This will give you something substantial and positive to hold on to in those dark moments when you doubt yourself and feel lost. You might want to be a more reliable person for the people you care about. You might want to have a healthy, happy life. You might want to achieve something amazing. Whatever the reasons might be, when you deeply understand why the goals and standards you strive for are worthy and meaningful, it gives you an inner spiritual foundation that you can rely on in both the ups and the downs of the recovery journey. In the words of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, “Even if you cannot do something, but you simply think, ‘How can I do it? How can I do it? How can I do it?’ then you will also become liberated.”
Mistakes are Part of the Journey
“Cheating and weakness are two separate things.” — Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati
Self-control isn’t an ability that you simply turn on like a light switch. It’s more like a muscle that you build with practice and care. That’s why, even with the best of intentions, it takes time to overcome any addiction, and you will most likely make mistakes along the way. Mistakes don’t necessarily mean that you’re insincere or hopeless. It only means that you’re trying to learn something new.
At the same time, you don’t want to make excuses that postpone meaningful change to a future that that never come. So how can you tell whether you’re making progress despite a few slips and setbacks, or you’re hopelessly repeating the same tired mistakes? To answer this question, you need to understand the difference between slipping and crumbling.
Slipping is a mistake that happens because of weakness. When you analyze what happened, the mistakes you made were not because of any informed, voluntary choices on your part. You were sincerely trying, and your mind was determined. But because you haven’t developed the strategy, strength, or support you need yet, you did something you regret. Don’t be too hard on yourself for this. Just like it’s not possible for a child to learn to how walk without falling sometimes, mistakes are part of the journey. As long as you give your best effort and learn from your mistakes, these setbacks are only temporary. So don’t be discouraged. Get back up and keep trying. You’re meant to stand and walk.
Crumbling is when you make choices that contribute to the problem. You might be going through the motions and saying all the right things. But you’re not sincerely trying to reach the actual outcome of sobriety. Instead, you find excuses that soothe your ego, avoid accountability, and create opportunities for more poor choices. The danger is that as soon as you allow yourself even one exception, you start to repeat that exception over and over. The exception becomes the rule. Every time you crumble, it puts your mind into an impulsive, careless state where you consider cheating even more. And you can’t make any progress while you’re in this mindset.
From an external point of view, slipping and crumbling look very similar—In fact, you’re engaged in the same unwanted behavior either way. But what makes the difference between the two is your inner mindset. No one slips on purpose. As soon as you fall on purpose, it’s not “slipping”, but diving headfirst. We find this distinction in the philosophy of Western law. A first-degree crime is planned in advance, while a second-degree crime is spontaneous, and a third-degree crime is the predictable outcome of reckless behavior—like a homicide caused by drunk driving. So why is a person who planned a crime is punished more severely than someone who spontaneously did the same thing? Because he has a criminal mindset. Likewise, the important thing to note when evaluating your own setbacks is not just the action itself, but the mindset behind it. At all costs, you need to avoid harboring an addict mindset. More important than flawless execution is making sure that you’re not complicit in your own mistakes.
You might be hesitant if you’ve made larger-than-life commitments before, only to break them. But the good news is that getting your mind in the right place is a commitment you can keep. By understanding the difference between cheating and weakness, you will realize that even though it takes time to overcome an addiction, it’s always possible to refrain from cheating. In fact, cheating is only defined as cheating because it’s based on poor thinking and choices that you could have avoided. Likewise, doing your best, however imperfectly, is always an option. So make an unconditional commitment to do the things that are always possible: be honest, do your best, learn from your mistakes, and refrain from needless cheating. And don’t be discouraged if your journey is gradual and imperfect. The depth of your sincerity will carry you through this challenging journey to transform your character.
A Winning Strategy
One of the hardest parts of overcoming addiction is realizing that urges, fantasies, and excuses often show up without warning. You don’t ask for them—they just come. One moment you feel steady, and the next, you’re struggling with a powerful thought or craving that seems to come out of nowhere. And just like self-control isn’t like a light that you can simply turn on, urges aren’t something you can simply turn off. That’s why you need a winning strategy to make a comeback after a fall, anticipating that you will encounter the same challenge again.
It’s easy to assume that cheating or slipping up means you’re weak, bad, or broken. But most of the time, we don’t cheat because we want to betray ourselves—we cheat because we feel overwhelmed trying to resist, and our minds are looking for a solution to the intense self-conflict. If we let ourselves do something bad on purpose, we’d feel ashamed of ourselves—and that’s too heavy to carry. So the mind comes up with an alternative path to find relief through addiction without you having to directly choose it. It finds ways to cheat. In other words, cheating is a subconscious, psychological strategy to relieve pain while avoiding accountability.
You can expect that the mind will continue to suggest various kinds of cheating and dishonesty. A winning strategy is to be honest with yourself and accountable to a mentor, as you ask what you really need to work on. The following are four ways we cheat, along with strategies to counteract them.
Instead of avoiding challenges, embrace them.
Instead of flirting with temptation, respect your limits.
Instead of making excuses, be honest and accountable.
Instead of giving up when it’s hard, try your best effort.
Because these four principles are so important to follow, I will call them “laws.”
Law 1: Embrace Challenges
Imagine that you’re stuck on the bottom of a dark, cold well. Luckily, there’s a sturdy ladder that’s just tall enough to reach the surface. But you notice that the cold is really biting, so you want to get nice and warm before you start the long climb to the top. You break the ladder into pieces and make a fire. It feels really cozy for a few hours. But then you realize your mistake: You’re stuck now with no way to get out.
The moral of the story is: Life is hard. The temptation is always there to procrastinate important work, and just do something that makes you feel better. But sometimes the only way out of an bad situation is to face some temporary discomfort to get to a better place. It might be an uncomfortable conversation, a big transition in life with a lot of uncertainty, or just some difficult work that you hate to do. There are a lot of uncomfortable things we avoid, but this avoidance often makes things worse in the long-term.
The important thing is to take action and do what you can to change your circumstances, rather than trying to numb your pain while keeping everything the same. You don’t want to remain stuck in the same old dark place, becoming more and more dependent on addictive habits to cope. Because the longer you procrastinate the work that needs to be done, the more daunting it seems, and the more you feel incapable of handling life sober. You lose your power to control yourself and your destiny. Instead, do the opposite. Accept your pain and face your challenges head-on, so that you can build your self-confidence and make life better. No matter how hard things get, there’s always something you can do to make life better.
Embracing challenges is not about punishing yourself or suffering for its own sake. It’s about aligning your actions with your higher values and making choices that are better for you in the long-term. You start to see comfort as a preference rather than an absolute necessity. You also realize that a lot of wonderful things come after accepting discomfort. Each time you make choices based on this wisdom, you prove to yourself that you’re capable of overcoming fear and you deepen your self-respect. Therefore, instead of running away from your pain, take care of yourself, work harder, grow stronger, and embrace challenges that will deepen your integrity and improve the circumstances of your life. When you see this journey as serving your best interest, you’ll have a positive attitude that empowers you to keep going when it’s hard. That way, even when you make a mistake, getting back on track will be a return to something you love.
Law 2: Know Your Limits
Self-sabotage is pretending we’re committed to recovery while quietly making choices that set us up to fail. We back ourselves into a corner until giving in feels like the only option—then call it hopeless, so we don’t have to face the part we played in it. This helps us to preserve some self-esteem while seeking relief in addictive habits. But it also keeps us stuck in a vicious cycle which ultimately make us more ashamed of our choices. Real self-esteem doesn’t come from avoiding shame—it comes from living with integrity, even when it’s hard.
There are two main types of self-sabotage—one that begins with the senses, and one that begins with the mind. Now, let’s take a look at both.
Self-sabotage starting with the senses
Sometimes, self-sabotage begins on a sensual level. You experience something that sparks an intoxicating feeling, and then you want more of this initial sample. Lowering your guard to risky situations and behaviors, you ignore the potential consequences. The hope is to be swept away by some outside force—to cross the line without fully admitting you surrendered to the momentum that got you here. The illusion of being a victim makes feel like you can’t be held accountable. It’s a way we try to resolve the inner conflict between our desires and higher judgment. But deep down, you know that sampling has the power to overwhelm your resistance eventually.
A lot of times, we justify the mistake of playing with fire by saying that we’re just “testing our resolve.” But we don’t become stronger by playing with fire. It’s only leads to relapse. If you really want to develop strength, then face the challenges in important areas of your life and work hard to make life better. Don’t waste time loitering in places—online or offline—that spark desires for things you shouldn’t be doing. And when you can’t completely avoid such places, it’s best to minimize your time spent there and to be on guard, just like when you walk through dangerous streets at night, you’re very careful.
One of the smartest things you can do in recovery is to anticipate your own impulsivity. Don’t wait until you feel overwhelmed to start thinking clearly—by then, it’s often too late. You already know your patterns. You know the places, times, and moods that make you more likely to crumble. So instead of assuming you’ll always have the determination to resist, take protective measures ahead of time. Know and respect your limits. Create distance between you and your temptations, place barriers in the way, and add friction into the process of relapse, so that you can’t “accidentally” stumble across the very thing you're trying to quit. At the same time, make it as easier to engage in important activities, placing all the tools within your reach, removing obstacles, and making the process as streamlined as possible. You don’t have to be perfect in your determination when you create an environment that protects your future self from reckless moments. Of course, these changes won’t solve everything. But they give a fighting chance. Strength isn’t always about saying no—it’s also about setting yourself up to make it easier to say yes to what truly matters.
Self-sabotage starting with the mind
Sometimes, self-sabotage begins on a mental or emotional level—where you disturb your mind on purpose, realizing intuitively that it will trigger desires for escape. You might dwell on resentful thoughts, feeling sorry for yourself and reasoning that you don’t deserve to suffer this way, and justifying a splurge to make yourself feel better. You might obsess over the “evilness” of addiction in a way that keeps your mind focused on it, until your adverse thoughts turn into desire. Whatever form this self-sabotage might take, disturbing your own mind is a strategy where you pursue a relapse indirectly while trying to avoid responsibility for your choices.
The key to overcoming self-sabotaging thoughts is to focus on what you can control, and let go of what you can’t. When you notice you're getting caught in self-sabotaging thoughts, pause and take a deep breath. Ask yourself: Is this something I really need to deal with right now, or is it just playing on repeat in my mind? And then: How much control do I actually have over this? If it’s mostly in your head, remind yourself that thoughts aren’t reality—you have the power to choose where you focus your attention. Accept what’s outside your control, and shift your energy toward what you can change.
Lastly, you don’t need to eliminate disturbing thoughts entirely—that’s not a realistic goal. Instead, focus on how you respond to them. You’re not obligated to believe every impression or act on every impulse. The key is to stay conscious and intentional with your beliefs and actions, so that the presence of difficult thoughts doesn’t erode your self-control or pull you away from your deeper values.
Law 3: Be honest and Accountable
No one likes to feel ashamed of themselves. Even when we make serious mistakes, we often try to justify them to make ourselves look better. We blame circumstances or other people, argue why we had no choice, or point out the mistakes of other people that are worse. There are endless diversions you can come up with. But no matter how clever the reasoning, the real purpose behind any excuse is to soften the guilt over something that, deep down, you know was a poor choice. That’s why making excuses is another form of cheating.
Making excuses is a form of self-deception that undermines your intelligence. Instead of thinking about what’s right and then guiding yourself accordingly, you hide your mistakes behind a mask of stories that justify your transgressions. In other words, you start with a desire and then bend logic to support it. This turns your mind into a tool for self-sabotage instead of self-mastery. It’s like a judge taking bribes from a defendant. This corruption comes at the cost of undermining your own determination, accepting lies as truth, and making poor decisions that have real consequences.
What makes something an excuse? An excuse is strong enough to justify pulling the trigger, but not strong enough to hold up to real scrutiny. It’s a kind of reasoning designed for the effect of weakening your resistance to something you crave, rather than to uncovering the truth. When you’re in doubt, imagine seeking feedback from someone you trust and respect. Would you be confident in your reasoning? There’s nothing wrong taking breaks or enjoying treats in moderation, for example. But there are also ideas that are obviously indefensible, like stealing prescription drugs. The more you expose your thinking about a habit under question, the more you open up the opportunity to find healthy alternatives. This is how you break free from self-deception and start making choices that align with your values.
There are two times when it’s most important to avoid making excuses:
During moments of cravings: It’s important to recognize that intense cravings come with crazy thoughts. Recognize this experience for what it is: a temporary state of insanity. Any thoughts that seem to justify bad choices cannot be taken seriously. Invalidate them all. As long as you don’t endorse any of these cravings as good ideas, there’s no need to wish the storm would go away. Just be patient and it will pass on its own.
After you make a mistake: Don’t let all-or-nothing thinking drive you from one extreme to another—expecting complete success overnight and then using the slightest mistake as a license to jump off the cliff headfirst into a binge. Progress isn’t about perfection. It’s about getting back on track without letting one mistake determine your whole journey. Even when you lose control, minimize the damage as much as you can, and get yourself back on track as quickly as possible. Allowing your mistakes to spiral completely out of control is a sign of making excuses.
Think of yourself as a seeker of truth. With every excuse that you expose and reject, you are sharpening your mind, aligning yourself with reality, and affirming that values that define who you ultimately are.
Instead of being a prisoner to hidden biases and rationalizations, you become a person who sees things as they are and acts with real power. The more honest you are with yourself, the sharper your thinking becomes, the stronger you grow, and the more capable you are of achieving what truly matters to you.
Law 4: Consistently Give Your best Effort
The final step in all relapses is giving up. At some point, you realize that you’re on the wrong track and quickly reaching the point of no return. You could stop right there and turn around, but instead you say, “screw it” and impulsively keep going. Reaching this final step is the culmination of a slow drift that began with several moments of complacency, dishonesty, and poor decision-making. You’ve given up way too much ground and put yourself into a weak position. You’re selling yourself short when you could do much better.
Recovery is a fight. And at some point, that fight can get ugly. You’re tired, stressed out, and having a hard day. There’s a thought in the back of your mind that if you just stop trying, you can take the easy way out. It seems like giving into urges makes them go away. But this relief is only temporary, and it reinforces your resistance to a fight that’s coming back soon. So stay in the fight. You might not avoid every strike the enemy throws at you, but by continuing to struggle forward, even during the most difficult moments, you will eventually prevail. Even when you can’t be perfect, minimize the damage and get back on track as quickly as possible.
At the same time, even the greatest fighters need proper rest, nutrition, training, and encouragement. Willpower is a limited resource, and it depends a lot on taking care of yourself. Make sure to keep yourself in a condition to be ready for fights, and then apply yourself when they come. Keep proving to yourself that you can rise above temptations, and in time, you’ll become someone who never even considers surrender an option. Until then, go down swinging. Die trying.
Mentorship With Accountability
Everyone makes mistakes. But as long as you’re not engaged in dishonesty and self-sabotage, it’s only a matter of weakness, and not cheating. That’s why the most important kind of accountability goes deeper than simply reporting your mistakes. You also acknowledge what was going on in your mind and heart at the time of the setback. Then you evaluate the choices you made in response, remembering that you don’t have to act on every impulse you feel, and considering what you really need at this point in your journey.
Being honest is absolutely necessary before you can expect real progress. But you don’t have to figure out everything on your own. In fact, accountability works best in relationship, not isolation. Otherwise, you might get lost trying to figure what to do. You might not notice how you’re biased towards confirming your own preconceived notions or justifying how your own biases keep you stuck in unhelpful mindsets or habits. You might not even realize you have an unhealthy pattern in your life because it’s so familiar it doesn’t catch your attention anymore. Or even if you do notice it, you might waver in your determination to change it. On your own, it’s too easy to fall back into old habits, leaving your mistakes unexamined because of making excuses or simply not thinking. But a mentor is someone who can give you objective feedback, challenge your assumptions, and bring important issues to your attention.
Work with your mentor to clarify your values in a way that makes it clear what goals and standards you should be striving for. Talk about what’s holding you back—like doubts, fears, or confusion. Talk through those issues and clarify the reasons why you want to overcome your addiction. Commit yourself to reporting all your errors, excuses, and self-sabotaging behavior. In fact, simply knowing that you will have to explain your choices is enough to protect you from acting on many impulses, because you know that wouldn’t be confident to defend them. Your mentor will give you the perspective and insights you need. They will encourage you to believe in yourself and celebrate your wins with you. As you begin to reach new milestones every day, your mentor will guide you through each step of this new territory, saving you the trouble of having to learn from trial-and-error.
Until you’re able to control yourself without support, you need to meet with your mentor regularly. They might not perfectly match your preferences, but this doesn’t have to stop you. Use the discomfort as a motivation to graduate the program. Otherwise, simply knowing that you can get away with cutting corners is a powerful trigger for relapse that you might not be ready for.
Informed Motivation
“A person who is not shaken by the movements of the mind is situated as if he is above it all. He sees that the laws of nature alone are acting. Therefore, he is said to have transcended them.” — Bhagavad-Gita 14.23
Breaking free from addiction is like finding your way out of a maze. If you keep making choices that are impulsive and short-sighted, you won’t be able to understand how you’re stuck going around in circles. But by climbing a ladder to look at the maze from above, you will recognize which turns lead to freedom, and which ones will keep you stuck. The way to do this is by patiently reflecting on your past mistakes and recognizing patterns. What has made you successful? What has led to unnecessary setbacks? Addiction is very predictable by nature, so it shouldn’t remain a mystery what will help you and what will hinder you. You will come to the conclusion that you need to make the following changes:
Heal your pain, rather than numbing it.
Solve your problems, rather than running away from them.
Find positive engagements, rather than loitering in tempting situations.
Focus on what you can control, rather than getting upset about what you can’t.
Discipline your habits according to your values, rather than justifying compromises according to your desires.
Put your full effort into a positive direction, rather than quitting as soon as the going gets tough.
Some people think of quitting a habit as a loss. Others, however, see it as an opportunity. The difference between these two people lies in what they value. The person who refuses to give up cheating, even shown his mistake, is short-sighted. He only considers how the addiction feels in the moment, (good); compared to how self-control feels in the moment, (bad). But the intelligent person has a broader vision. He realizes that there are more important things in life than comfort, which when given too much importance, can actually interfere with your integrity and well-being. Therefore, he’s happy to embrace some short-term sacrifices for the sake of his own self-interest.
There is only way to shift from lamenting the loss of addictive habits to celebrating that state of sobriety. No external cause or mechanical process can make you choose the higher path. “Rock bottom” is a myth. Not even your mentor force you to be honest or sincere. It’s ultimately up to you. It has to come from your own heart, after understanding what’s required to be successful. But it’s based on the understanding that quitting is in your self-interest, even though it’s hard.
Self-Belief
Even after you commit to change, there might be some setbacks. But once you commit to this path you will never crumble. And eventually, once you’ve developed the strength and determination you need, you will stand, walk, run, jump, and fly—without ever slipping—just like you’re meant to.
Believing in yourself comes from the experience of reaching new levels. You realize that you’re capable of more than you thought. So wherever you are on this path—whether you’ve failed repeatedly or you’re reaching new milestones daily—this present moment is the only place from which to move forward. This is where the rest of the fight begins. Therefore, embrace the challenges in your life, avoid unnecessary risks, don’t accept excuses, and don’t give up. Each time you say, “no” to urges and temptations, you gain a reason to believe that you can do it again. You’re capable of lasting change.
Need support?
You might be wondering how you can apply these ideas and practices into your own life. Change can be hard when you’re used to doing things a certain way, and you’re discouraged from past failures.
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Testimonial
“For many years I had an addiction. I felt so ashamed of it that I would drive 50 miles each week to see a counselor, just so no one would recognize me when I walked in from my car.
I’ve actually done coaching with Damodar for over five years now, and we’ve written down my whole life story together. I began to realize that my addiction makes perfect sense given my rough circumstances and sensitive nature. I also began to see my way out of it.
I’ve become more assertive and self-satisfied in my dealings with others. I’ve learned how to accept my feelings and take greater responsibility. The experience of having Damodar get to know me so personally, and still be warm and accepting, has been the opposite of shame. Now I’ve reached an entire year of sobriety. And I’m so grateful to him.”
— Darren