Surrendering Changes Your Life

Quote of the day:
“Every one has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody: People cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness.”
--Seneca

A celebrity-doing-good quote of the day:
“Learning about abstinence was one thing, but then there was this other area of my life to start learning about, and so 30 days became 60, and 60 days became 90, and with each week that passed I found myself really learning how to surrender.”
--Keith Urban, country singer and husband of Nicole Kidman.

Urban was talking about his stay at the Betty Ford Center for treatment of alcohol dependency. Addiction is such a hard thing to shake, it is inspiring to hear someone who not only stuck with a treatment program, but came to understand addiction’s power.

I’ve never known anyone to “shake” an addiction. The pattern is usually long periods of deterioration followed by seeming recovery followed by another period of deterioration. The recovery only “sticks” if the addict can sustain regular treatment or support for the rest of his life.

That’s the special appeal of Urban going public. He is saying that he knows he has a problem, and that he knows it’s huge, and that he knows he needs continuing support. That’s what the “surrender” is about. And Urban’s life will continue to be about surrender.

Here’s how to know your dealing with an addict or alcoholic with a problem. He or she will always say either that he doesn’t have a problem, or that he has figured out or solved the problem.