What if the problem isn't your childhood trauma? What if you've been using your younger self as an excuse to avoid taking full accountability for your life right now?

After 42 years of recovery work and decades of therapy, I discovered something that changed everything: The 7-year-old version of me who lost his dad was fine. He'd been ready to move on this whole time. I was the one who wouldn't let him go.

In this episode, I walk through how the "demons" - the disease, the anxiety, the character defects - survive by keeping us focused on healing past wounds instead of dealing with present-day accountability. I share my own timeline from age 12 through decades of sobriety, showing how I used childhood trauma as the explanation for everything while the real work went undone.

This is about recognizing when your past becomes your excuse, and what changes when you finally let that younger version off the hook.

If you've been doing the work for years and still feel stuck, this one's for you.

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