Learning To Ask For Help

I get two emails of the thought for the day variety. Here is this mornings from the Hazelden foundation which serves as both a rehabilitation facility and a rehab press publisher.

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. 
--George Bernard Shaw

In order to get well, we have to admit that we alone are powerless over our disease. We need other people to help us.

This is hard for us to do. We aren't used to needing anyone or asking for help. We all pushed people away.

We know now that our way never worked, and that we need help. There will always be someone who will help lead us along the path toward the health and serenity we want. But to ask for this help takes both courage and humility. We gain support from this risk, and also new strength, fellowship, and wisdom. Each time we take the chance to ask for help, we are exercising control over our lives.

Today let me remember I am not alone by asking another for something I need.

From the book: Our Best Days by Nancy Hull-Mast

Asking for help is both easy and hard for me.   As a guy in a wheelchair, I have always found it easy to ask a stranger to get something off the top shelf for me at a grocery store.  Being vulnerable to exposing profound emotional problems that are literally life and death for me with friends and my support network has been impossible at times.  I am getting better at asking for help.  Many times I don’t even need to ask for help, I just need to talk about my issues (that are not necessarily a problem) with another person.  I am fantastically better than how it used to be, but it is still much harder than it needs to be.

I am grateful for the progress I have made in learning how to ask for help and talk with others about my thoughts and feelings that I used to have to keep to myself.  Today I am only as sick as my secrets.