Today I accept that recovery has changed my baseline of experience. When I release trauma, terror and rage, they are really gone. I used to have those emotions on top, and they could surface and apply themselves to any situation. Psychodramatically and therapeutically, I have blown them out of my system, and through sharing, my pain has been lifted. I need no longer carry inside of me what is gone. I can operate from a different place. It really is possible to live my life without all that baggage. It has been an immense amount of work, but it has been more than worth it. I am enjoying my freedom from the past that had me in its grip.

I am operating differently today.

To remain young one must change. The perpetual campus hero is not a young man but an old boy.
Alexander Chase