Addiction Recovery: Finding the Center

Addiction can cause chaos, as if life has exploded into thousands of pieces that can’t be put back together. This type of chaos can cause anxiety, an unspecified fear that’s hard to pin down on any particular person, place or thing. Often, when someone comes into treatment, they report anxiety, and they might have even been diagnosed with anxiety disorder.

It’s difficult, in the beginning, to distinguish anxiety caused by addiction from anxiety that’s caused by an anxiety disorder. Many times when someone comes into treatment with an anxiety disorder diagnosis, the anxiety goes away after a few months of sobriety. It also happens, though, that anxiety remains has to be treated with medication. But time and recovery will usually reveal the truth.

We suggest to our clients they learn how to meditate, to stop the chaos and find a centered place within. This is actually healthy for anyone, whether they have a problem with addiction or not. Too many people get caught up in the mad rush of life and don’t take time to listen to what’s going on inside, or just relax the mind. If you throw the craziness of addiction in the mix, you have a life out of control — and, yes, this produces anxiety.

When someone in recovery begins to feel centered, they’re less likely to go back to drugs. They can make better decisions – it begins to make less and less sense to return to the craziness of addiction. If someone doesn’t learn how to slow down and find a calming center, if they just return to the hustle and bustle, and if they don’t deal with emotional problems, their life remains chaotic and anxiety-riddled — sobriety becomes painful rather than peaceful and mentally healthy — this is how people set themselves up for relapse. If recovery is chaotic and painful, it won’t be long before the person reverts to what they’ve taught themselves eases pain — drugs. In reality, returning to alcohol or their drug of choice, only provides short-term relief and long term pain, until there is no relief at all. Finding and maintaining a center in recovery is important.