All my life, the words of my mum and grandma echoed through my childhood and early years: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” They believed it with all their hearts, and they wanted me to believe it too. But I was too busy thinking I knew better, too stubborn to admit that I didn’t have the answers. In those days, to admit that I didn’t know something felt like weakness, and weakness was something I couldn’t allow the world to see. So instead of asking, instead of seeking, instead of knocking, I bottled everything up inside until the weight of it crushed me. And when it became too heavy, I drank. I drank to silence the noise, to escape the shame, to hide from the truth that was staring me in the face all along.

Looking back, I see now how I lived in contradiction. I carried resentment whenever life proved me wrong, blaming everyone else for my pain, yet deep down I knew I was running from myself. Alcohol was my shield, but it was also my prison. It numbed me long enough to survive, but it never gave me peace. I had the key to freedom all along – those simple words taught by the women who loved me most – but I was too proud to use it. Asking meant surrender. Asking meant saying, “I don’t know.” And for so many years, I wasn’t ready to do that.

The most fundamental shift in my recovery has been realising that asking is not weakness – it is strength. When I admitted that I had no power over alcohol, that it had complete control of me, I finally began to understand what my mum and grandma were trying to tell me. I didn’t need to carry everything alone. I didn’t need to pretend I had it all figured out. I only needed the courage to ask, and in doing so, I opened myself up to receive. Asking for help in recovery was the first step into a new way of living, one where honesty became my foundation instead of denial.

This change didn’t happen overnight. In truth, it’s one of the slower lessons that has taken root in me. At first, even in sobriety, I still hesitated to ask. Old fears crept in, whispering that I might be judged, that I might appear weak. But over time, as I asked and received, as I sought and found, I discovered that there is no shame in needing others. In fact, it is one of the deepest connections of being human. Now I ask when I don’t know, when I need guidance, even when I simply want to check if someone else is okay. That practice, simple yet profound, has reshaped the way I move through life.

Today I walk with a new freedom. I no longer fear the unknown, nor am I paralysed by anxiety about what lies ahead. Life doesn’t feel like a lonely battle anymore, because I know that I am not doing it alone. Whenever I pause and remember, I return to that promise: ask, and it shall be given; seek, and I will find; knock, and the door will be opened. My higher power is always there when I reach out. And with that knowledge, I feel unshakable – not because I am strong on my own, but because I now know how to ask, and in asking, I am never without help.

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The Door of Asking

All my life I carried a silence,
believing silence to be strength.
To admit I did not know,
was to be small,
and to be small was to be broken.

So I held the questions in my chest
until they crushed me.
And when the weight grew too heavy,
I poured drink upon the silence,
to drown it.

But drink was not freedom.
Drink was a cage of my own making,
bars forged from pride and fear.
I held the key,
yet would not use it,
because the key was asking.

To ask is to bow,
to admit emptiness,
to make space for something greater.
I thought this was weakness.
But weakness held me captive.

In surrender,
I found release.
In saying “I do not know,”
I found wisdom waiting.
In asking,
I received.

This path is not swift,
roots do not grow overnight.
Even now, old shadows whisper:
You will be judged. You are less.
Yet when I ask,
those whispers dissolve,
like mist at dawn.

To need another,
is not shame.
It is the deepest truth of being human.
It is the thread that binds,
my heart to yours,
my life to the Way.

Now I walk freely.
I no longer fear the unknown,
for the unknown opens when I knock.
I am no longer alone,
for I have learned to reach out my hand.

Ask, and it is given.
Seek, and I discover.
Knock, and the door,
opens in my heart.

This is not my strength,
it is the strength of letting go.
In asking,
I am never without help.