Recovery From Addiction

Recovery from addiction is not easy. Most people suffering from addiction need treatment. Treatment is more than getting the drug out of your body, it’s learning to live without the drug. Whether it’s alcohol, cocaine, opiates, pot, or whatever the choice of drug, recovery requires abstinence and a holistic approach to change. By holistic I mean the brain, emotions, body, relationships, nutrition, exercise, work, creativity, etc.

A person in recovery from addiction has to change how they think about drugs. There are triggers which can set off the compulsion to use. Maybe it’s anger, or maybe it’s being in a place where there’s alcohol, or holidays, or the weekends, or being around old friends who still drink and use, or feeling lonely, or feeling insecure, on and on. In recovery a person must learn their relapse triggers and develop a strategy to deal with these triggers.

If you just remove the drug from your body and don’t do anything else, you’ll probably be blind-sided by relapse triggers, and, when you are, you’ll be defenseless without a recovery plan. In treatment, we help clients develop a recovery plan so they can proactively deal with aspects of life that might create the desire to drink or use again. The key is awareness of what sets you off. It’s easy to forget you have a problem when you start feeling good again. Don’t mistake feeling good for recovery. Recovery is a life long process that’s carried out each day. Just as the diabetic can’t forget they have diabetes, the recovering addict can’t forget using drugs sets off the addiction, even after months or years of abstinence.

The goal in recovery is to create such a better life without alcohol, cocaine, opiates or some other drug you don’t want to go back to that kind of life, but with the understanding you likely will if you take your new life for granted. Once you realize this, it’s not hard to take actions each day to maintain and enhance your recovery, because the rewards inspire you to go forward.