What Is Addiction Recovery?
Addiction recovery is the process of overcoming one of life’s greatest challenges – addiction – and restoring oneself to a better place mentally, physically, emotionally and often spiritually as well. Alcohol and drug addiction recovery is typically preceded by detox, a cleansing of the body from harmful intoxicants.
The addiction recovery process that follows involves a cleansing of the spirit and mind. It often involves unpacking extensive emotional baggage, forgiving oneself and asking forgiveness of others who have been hurt in the past by the patient’s addiction.
The Five Phases of Addiction Recovery
There are essentially five phases to addiction recovery: Admission of a problem – If the addict does not see their addiction as a problem, then logically they will not see the need for addiction recovery.
- Compliance – Agreeing to abstain from the addictive substance on a daily basis, without a clear understanding of the reasoning behind the addiction.
- Defiance – This is the stage when the patient will typically believe that, because they have been good for a while, they are empowered to pick and choose what aspects of the addiction recovery program apply to them. They may think they do not need the critical step of continuing care, for instance.
- Acceptance – Accepting the fact that an addiction exists is a fundamental building block to moving on with a healthy, positive life and forgiving oneself.
- Surrender – This last stage of addiction recovery involves complete, voluntary acceptance of the treatment plan. This helps build upon the acceptance phase in the continual climb toward a better, healthier, more positive life.
Admitting that you have a problem really is the best and fastest way to begin recovery. In fact, you can’t really get better from a drug addiction problem unless you are able to admit that you have a problem in the first place. Once you have admitted that you have a problem, you are going to be able to begin to recover.
The First Step in Recovery
The first step in recovery from a drug addiction, after you have admitted that you have a problem, is to enter some sort of drug treatment center. There are many different options and different types of treatment centers, but the most important thing about whatever center you choose is going to be the fact that they are going to talk to you. This is very important in dealing with your drug addiction.
You need to be able to talk to someone about your issues and about your problems with drugs. If you can have a session in which you can talk to a group of people or even one where you talk to one person, you are going to have a better chance of figuring out what it is that led to your addiction.
Where Did Your Problems Originate?
Part of recovering from a drug or alcohol addiction is figuring out what led to your problems in the first place. Few people can figure this out without help from a drug rehab, so it is important that you find someone to talk to. In order to talk to someone about your drug addiction, you should find a place where you feel safe and secure. Once you have figured out why you use drugs, you will be able to recognize the parts of your life that led to your addiction.
When you have put together the things in your past that led to your drug addiction with the things in your present that make you or encourage you to continue to use drugs, you will be able to figure out what it is about your life you need to change.
Changing Your Life with Addiction Recovery
An important part to drug addiction recovery is change. There are going to be things about your life that you just can’t keep the same when you are in recovery. You might have to stop being around certain people that encourage you to use drugs, and you might have to change some of your activities, if they are things that you cannot do without using drugs. You might also have to recreate a life for yourself, and make it the way you’ve always wanted your life to be – drug free and wonderful.
It is important to remember that you are human and you make mistakes, just like everyone else. A big part in starting drug rehab program is to forgive yourself for all of the mistakes that you have made. You have to be able to start clean and fresh, and you can’t start out clean if you have issues that you need to deal with regarding things that you have done in the past.
You need to make amends for the things that you have messed up, and you might have to do some apologizing. The most important part though, is that you allow yourself to forgive yourself for what you’ve done. If there are people in your life that can’t forgive you, you have to move on. If you can’t forgive yourself, there is going to be no way that you can get past your drug addiction and move on towards recovery.