![who will tell the story of your life who will tell the story of your life](https://media.wired.com/photos/592678cecfe0d93c4743051d/master/pass/BookClub_FI-3.jpg)
More than anything, the first stretch of your story should detail how you fell into addiction in the first place. As long as you’re open and speak with honesty at all times, this will not be an act of egotism. Use this opportunity to let people know why you have been chosen for the task of telling your story. This is a rare opportunity to let people in, let them get to know you. Don’t just stand before the podium and present yourself as someone who abused substances for a while and then quit. So while you don’t need to go through every minute detail, you should still endeavor to hit the major points. Without our pasts, we would not be who we are today. More importantly, however, these are both examples of things that have molded your personality and experiences. There is also a notable run of addiction in the LGBT community. In detailing your pre-addiction past, you are essentially focusing on the aspects that have defined you the most. Your emotional burdens have likely played a hand in your addiction (especially in the case of those who have dealt with abuse or other traumas), but people do not need to know every minute detail. You are, after all, telling a story about addiction and recovery. If there are certain things in your childhood that have created long-standing emotional burdens for you, then there is no harm in mentioning these however, be careful not to make them the entire focus of your past. With this time frame in mind, the next step in telling your story is to determine which aspects of your past are the most important. Not only will this keep you from engaging in too many war stories, but it will also help you refine your focus to the most important aspects of your story overall. Since most meetings begin with literature readings and group meditations, you should actually shorten this to about 20-25 minutes. As such, you don’t want this part of your story to run more than half an hour, assuming that you are telling your story at an hour-long speaker meeting. Newcomers may even decide that 12-step programs are nothing more than a bunch of depressing people telling woeful tales, and they may decide not to return to the fold. They will walk away lamenting their own similar stories, rather than embracing the joy they have discovered in sobriety.
#WHO WILL TELL THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE FULL#
While you may have many gut-wrenching tales from your childhood and from your addiction, focusing on them for the full length of your share will leave your listeners with no light at the end of the tunnel. This is a major concern, as you are essentially running the risk of telling an hour-long war story. Otherwise, you risk running too long and never getting past the story of your addiction. You will want to make some notes, and practice telling your story aloud to see how long it takes. This is sensible, but you must have an idea regarding which parts of your history are most important and which can be left out. When telling your story, you may feel the urge to start off as you would start any other story-from the beginning. In order to set up our stories, we must, unfortunately, dip into some of the worst moments of our addictions. These are simply suggestions, which will hopefully make telling your story a bit easier if you are going into it for the first time.
![who will tell the story of your life who will tell the story of your life](https://media.wired.com/photos/592678cecfe0d93c4743051d/2:1/w_300,h_150,c_limit/BookClub_FI-3.jpg)
But never forget that this is your story, and it is ultimately up to you how you choose to tell it. Hopefully, the following article will imbue you with a sense of how best to balance these aspects when sharing your tale with others who are in recovery. Focusing too much on any one of these aspects will not give people a full picture.
![who will tell the story of your life who will tell the story of your life](https://mouthworks.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Story-of-your-life-Social-Stories.png)
Telling your story requires you to focus on three aspects: what it was like, what happened, and what things are like now. Telling your story can be a frightening prospect if you have trouble opening up to others, but it is a skill that everyone should have in their wheelhouse if they intend to stay in recovery for the long haul. This may be in the form of a speaking meeting, or it may simply be a situation in which we feel as if another recovering addict or alcoholic may benefit from our counsel. Those of us who enter a 12 step recovery program such as AA and NA may eventually be charged with the task of telling our stories to others. You may not know the answer to this question when you first begin, but the following should help you figure it out.