52. Training Wheels and Probation Officers

Tigger slid into a chair in my office.  No bounce – I wondered if he was cycling into depression.   He said, “They say you gotta want to change.  What if you want to change because someone else wants you to change?”

“Making a major life change to please someone else is like learning to ride a bike with training wheels.  Eventually either you learn to want change, or at least accept the change, or you relapse.  Either you learn to balance on your own, or you fall hard.”

“See that’s where I think you’re wrong.  I could stay sober just because Tim wanted me to.”

“Maybe,” I said, “It’s not the same thing, but I’ve seen at least a hundred people relapse who stayed clean to make a judge or their probation officer happy.  They never took recovery to heart. Some of them got high the same day they came off probation. In a way, getting clean to keep Tim happy would make him like a probation officer to you.”

Today I will make positive changes because I want to.

Writing My New Story © 2015 by Ken Montrose

(Just a reminder: Writing My New Story is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to anyone you might know is purely coincidental.)