"Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit."
– Vince Lombardi
The Packers have another super victory after Super Bowl XLV yesterday. Vince Lombardi, former coach to Green Bay, has many books written about his great strategies for coaching and his winning attitudes. Lombardi was fierce to find principles that work. The small successful strategies applied over time led to a monumental and admired career legacy.
I was struck by his quote: “Once you learn to quit, it becomes habit.” To me, there is a double entendre. I thought of addiction. any addiction is a series of bad habits going in the wrong direction—heading towards the wrong goalpost, if you will. Recovery needs new habits, a collection of good choices, redirected towards the right goalpost. Initially I read the quote as: once one learns to quit a bad habit or addiction, a successful new habit is achieved. I thought about people I see who win in recovery. The addict that quits bad habits can turn their strategy around. Bad habits need to cease and good choices need to be aimed in the right direction. Quitting those habits of addiction forms a good habit over time with successful, and winning, outcomes.
Recovery is a season of collected victories with winning habits and attitudes consistently applied over time. Successful recovery is not to push out the negative, but to invite the light in. I thought more about Coach Lombardi’s quote: "Once you learn to quit, it becomes habit." Now I read it another way completely. Once one learns to quit, or becomes a quitter, THAT becomes a habit. Quitters never win. Winners whether in the Super Bowl, or in recovery, consistently apply winning principles to move in the right direction and never quit.
Either way one interprets the late Coach Lombardi, it works. Small successful acts, with movement in the right direction, consistently over time, win the game. Congratulations Packers!!