One thing that I always had a hard time doing was asking for help. My alcoholic father raised me as a single parent so there was never a lot of help to rely on. Financially and emotionally, the alcoholic struggled day to day. We werent a wealthy family, a connected family or even a healthy cohesive family. I never had anything to look to that told me everything will be ok. Looking around it appeared that everyone had it so much easier. They had the help, whether it was financial help from their parents, inheriting a business, emotional support that allowed them to find themselves it appeared a lot of the work was already done for them. I would always ask where does this leave me? Where is my help I developed a victim mentality. I grew jealous, which turned into resentment, which grew into bitterness. I had noone and nothing that I could rely on for hope and thats a very scary feeling.

The resulting behaviour for me in never having any help is that I never developed a healthy habit of asking for it. Anytime a moment would come up where I required someones assistance I would tell myself that I didnt need it and it was almost a sense of pride in not asking for it. I would tell myself that I can do this all on my own and I will not show any weakness. Anytime I saw someone else succeed at something with the help of others, I developed a sense of arrogance about it. I saw them as inferior and weaker than me and thought pffft what have you really accomplished? Half the work was done for you. I would see people inherit businesses or money, or get a good job working for a parent. I would see people younger than me buy houses with big down payments being taken care of. They would receive all sorts of congratulations. I would smile and shake their hand as per protocol but deep down my thinking would be telling them

What exactly have you done to warrant my congratulations? Because you were born into the right family? Married into the right family? Youve really just benefited off someone elses hard work and done very little to warant me patting you on the back. Ive done so much more with so much less, where are my congratulations? Much like the alcoholic I always brought it back to me, when it wasnt about me.

This way of thinking is extremely draining and unfair to all involved. It just gave me more reason to not want to ask for help. It perpetuated my anger and bitterness which would continue to come out as sarcasm and arrogance. I would put the weight of the world on my shoulders and as a human being, was obviously unable to carry it.

I have been doing some thinking in this regard for a long time. I turned to my higher power and I asked him for help. As I wrote it all down and truly saw the bigger picture, I realized that hes been there to help me the whole time. Firstly, I needed help in my recovery. I now have a sponsor and have connected with other members in the group whenever I needed support. I saw a TV show the other day that really hammered this point home that there is no shame in asking for help. It was a show about a sportscaster and he said Jordan never won without Pippen referring the NBA stars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Even the best players in the world got some help along the way. That didnt make their accomplishments any less relevant or stain them in any way. Anytime I feel overwhelmed and anxious I will now make it my goal to give my will to my higher power and ask for help.