Why Does It Matter? Because You Matter!

In the journey toward sobriety, there comes a moment — sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted — when a person asks, “What does it matter?”

I’ve heard this question countless times over the years. People arrive in treatment carrying the weight of shame, guilt, and stories that were never theirs to hold. Many come because someone else told them they had to: a judge, a case worker, a partner, a parent. And somewhere along the way, they absorbed painful messages like, “If you cared about your kids, you’d get your life together.”

Those messages don’t motivate healing.

They wound!

They silence!

They bury people under the very shame that often led them to use in the first place.

But here’s what I’ve witnessed, again and again:

There is a turning point.

At first, people say,

“I’m doing this for my kids.”

“I’m doing this for the court.”

“I’m doing this because I have to.”

And then, slowly, something shifts.

An unfamiliar voice emerges — quiet at first, but unmistakably theirs:

“I’m doing this for me!”

“I’m tired!”

“I’m ready!”

“I matter!”

That moment changes everything.

Because the truth is this:

Until you arrive at “I matter,” the cycle keeps repeating.

But once you begin to believe in your own worth — even a little — recovery stops being a checklist and becomes a path of becoming.

Your healing is not about proving anything to anyone else.

It’s about remembering something you were never meant to forget:

You matter!

You always have.

And your recovery begins the moment you believe it.

May light and peach accompany you on your path.

Dr. Gillian Harris‑Dale