Russia’s Invasion of Our Recovery | Sober and Unashamed

I didn’t write about the events that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. I didn’t talk about them in our Echoes of Recovery group. It wasn’t a writing prompt for our SHOUT Sobriety program. Not a word about it was mentioned during our monthly Marragevolution session, and I don’t even remember a related side discussion on our Untoxicated Podcast . I didn’t ignore it, Far from it, in fact. I internalized and anguished about January 6th. But as the most hyper-political and toxic event of my lifetime (if you think I’m exaggerating, please challenge me in the comments), I didn’t want to pour fuel on anyone’s fire by sharing my thoughts and emotions.

That was a mistake. People relapsed over January 6th.

I might not have been able to prevent the relapses of other people. To think that would be beyond arrogant, and it would put a pressure on my shoulders that I’m not comfortable owning. But I should have shared my experiences and feelings, because the first step to processing our emotions, is to identify and try to understand them. Together, maybe we could have made sense of the impact and managed our reactions.

I won’t make that mistake again.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most threatening conflict of my lifetime (again, if you think…