“Under the lash of alcoholism, we are driven to A.A., and there we discover the fatal nature of our situation. Then, and only then, do we become as open-minded to conviction and as willing to listen as the dying can be. We stand ready to anything which will lift the merciless obsession from us.” (A.A. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, 24)

Are You Ready For Recovery?

Life in recovery isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to figure out how to live without our highs. We don’t know if we can even imagine it—without them we feel raw, we feel unprotected. And then there is the sheer work of recovery. And it is work. We are expected to overhaul our lives, structuring our days around working the Steps, attending meetings, calling our sponsors and performing service. And this says nothing of the emotional work we know we’re in for. It’s painful, stressful and straining to have to face the worst parts of ourselves and our most tragic memories. Are you ready for that?

None of us are. We see the 12 Step Program before us and wonder how it would even be possible. How does anyone accomplish this? And why do they want to? Why does this seem like a better idea?

Where Do We Find Willingness To Recover From Addiction?

We are told that the only requirement for recovery is a willingness to stop doing what we’re doing.  But how do we achieve this state of mind? How do we find that level of motivation? The willingness comes when we start to match up the reality of our lives in addiction with the prospect of our lives in recovery. Look honestly at the pain, the desperation, the fear, the self-loathing and the hopelessness. Is your addict life of sitting around all day getting high really the easier, more comfortable way?

We come to the point of realizing that as challenging as recovery might appear, it is something worth working toward and fighting for. Our addiction life wasn’t easier—lazier, maybe, but not easier. What we have before us is a solution, a life preserver. We have the opportunity to reach for it, and see what we’re made of, and what our Higher Power can do for us. Is it comfortable? No, but comfort doesn’t accomplish much. It’s time to get a little comfortable with being uncomfortable.

The Quest For Freedom From Addiction

We may not believe ourselves worthy or capable of great things. Understandable. But many of us can identify with the desire to be freed of pain. The addict life is killing us. If it hasn’t yet taken our bodies, it is certainly going hard after our souls. We must believe that there is something more. We may not be rich or famous, but perhaps we could be free.

This desire for freedom becomes the foundation of our willingness. We begin to see that we don’t, at this early stage, need to figure out how we are going to accomplish recovery. We see large groups of people doing this recovery thing and they don’t look that different from us. They’re not super humans or particularly special. They have stories that sound a lot like ours, actually. And they seem happy. Their eyes are clear and they’re talking about all of the miraculous changes they have experienced. They are saying, “just take this thing one day at a time.”

We don’t need to know how we will do it or how we will keep it going; we do need the willingness to say “yes” to recovery today. Are you willing?

If you’re ready, ready for a new life of freedom and sobriety, contact drugrehab.us today at 855-763-6488!

Read More About Former Addicts Becoming Advocates For Recovery

“As active alcoholics, we lost our ability to choose whether we would drink. We were the victims of a compulsion which seemed to decree that we must go on with our own destruction.

Yet we finally did make the choices that brought about our recovery. We came to believe that alone we were powerless over alcohol. This was surely a choice, and a most difficult one. We came to believe that a Higher Power could restore us to sanity when we became willing to practice A.A.’s Twelve Steps.

In short we chose to ‘become willing,’ and no better choice did we ever make.” (Bill W., letter, 1966)

Have We As Addicts Lost The Power Of Choice?

What we hear in recovery is that we have lost the power of choice with regards to our addiction. When we begin to use, we cannot stop. It isn’t that we don’t want to stop—many times we actually do want to stop very much. But we cannot. An obsession of the mind and a compulsion of the body crush any opposition we might muster.

And then we hear about the choices we need to make to pursue recovery. But if we have lost the power of choice, how can we do anything besides surrender to the overwhelming power of addiction?

We cannot, when drinking or getting high, effectively choose to stop. But we can choose to become willing to get sober. We have seen that when alcohol, drugs or other addictions enter the picture, we lose our ability to say “no.” We can make a choice that this is a fight we’re no longer going to try to fight. We can decide to walk away altogether and never look back.

The Decision To End The Denial Of Addiction

The other choice we must make is to end our pattern of denial. How many years have we been saying there was no problem, really, or that we had this under control? Make the decision to begin looking at your life with a brutally bright light. Start to see that denial has been your defense and it’s killing you. It’s time to admit the truth. When you are ready to become honest, and to admit that you are indeed powerless, you open yourself to hope.

Stop Blaming Others For Your Addiction

As we sat languishing in our addictions we identified the people and the things we could blame for the state in which we found ourselves. It was our parents, our upbringing, our genetics, God, our bosses, spouses, kids, the government or some other institution. We thought ourselves justified: if “so and so” wasn’t the way he was or if this entity hadn’t done to us what it did, we wouldn’t be living this way. The next important choice we make is to stop blaming other people. Many people live hard lives, or have been the victims of injustice, or a bad childhood, and they aren’t drugging themselves to death. No one denies that perhaps life has dealt you a hard hand, but few will sympathize enough to say a drug addiction was a justified response. This is the path you have chosen, actually. And it is the path you can choose to get off of.

“We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life experience, and of our surroundings—that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can really choose.” (Bill W., Grapevine, Nov. 1960)

Read More About A Candid Story Of Surviving Addiction And Choosing Life In Recovery

Those on the road to recovery from a substance abuse problem would like to believe their journey to wellness will follow a straight and true path to its final destination. The reality is, however, that there are many forks and unexpected detours on this long and twisting road, which makes it incredibly easy for recovering addicts to stray off course.

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The hottest movie in theatres today is The Hunger Games, a futuristic tale of thirst for violence run amok. Actor Wes Bentley plays the man responsible for the games around which the story revolves. The movie marks his first major screen appearance since his famed role as the shy neighbor boy in the Oscar-winning film American Beauty. In between the two films the now 33 year old actor spent roughly 10 years spiraling downward into alcohol abuse and drug addiction. Now, he’s older, sober and back with another attention-getting role.

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“It’s the moment you think you can’t that you realize you can.” – Celine Dion, Canadian recording artist and entrepreneur (born 1968)

We’ve all had the thought that we simply can’t go on, that our troubles or circumstance – of our own making due to our addiction – are just too much for us to bear. We may look for the easy way out, but at the very least, we come face-to-face with the reality of our own actions. We tell ourselves we can’t do what’s expected of us, what we’re told is the way out of the darkness and into recovery.

That’s precisely the time when we realize – if we’re open to it – that we can, indeed, do exactly that. We can make it through whatever has happened or is happening now. What is at stake is our very life, our way of being, and our humanity. We can stare at the abyss and step back from it. In fact, we already have, since we’ve come through the serpentine labyrinth of addiction and made it out on the other side. Okay, it may be a tremulous and halting recovery to this point, but at least we’ve come this far. That’s really an achievement and one that we need to acknowledge. This is important because it gives us the strength and helps foster the determination to go on, to tackle the next obstacle or embrace the next opportunity that comes our way.

And we all face challenges and opportunities each and every day. Sometimes we don’t recognize them for what they are. We lump certain situations into the category of a roadblock when in reality, they’re really opportunities in disguise. We’ve heard the expression, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The same could be said here. When we encounter a problem or a difficulty of major or minor proportions, we can choose to look at it one of two ways. First, we can tell ourselves that it’s too much for us to handle and give up on it altogether. Second, and the more constructive way to deal with it, is that we can look closely at the situation, learn what we can from it, and figure out a way that we can deal with it and move on. In other words, we turn a bad situation into something that works for us. We learn from our mistakes and keep moving forward in recovery.

The key to being able to do this is a belief that we can. For some of us, this belief in our capabilities and self-worth is sorely lacking. We may have endured an abusive childhood or been down on our luck for many months or years or our entire life. It will be tough to summon this belief that we have what it takes, and that’s where counseling or therapy can be very beneficial to us. We can overcome the nightmare of the past, but we can’t do it alone. Professional help may provide the means and the way forward. We will need to give therapy time to work, particularly if we’ve had a long history of trauma, abuse and addiction. But we can do it. Yes, we can.

Start today by working on something small on our list of things to do for our recovery. As we accomplish the first task, whatever it may be, add this to our success list of achievements. This will begin to boost our self-confidence, to reinforce that we can do what we set out to do for ourselves in recovery. Yes, we can, and yes, we will.

“No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm.” – Charles F. Kettering, American inventor, engineer, teacher, humanitarian, and holder of 140 patents, better known as “Boss Ket” (1876-1958)

When we think of a storm, images of roiling black clouds, thunder, rain, and miserable conditions come to mind. It’s not a stretch to extend this mind’s-eye view of a storm to our experience in recovery, especially early recovery. That’s because when we first begin our recovery journey, we’re likely not at our best. First of all, we’ve just gotten clean and sober for perhaps the first time in a long time, or perhaps another time in a series of relapse events. At any rate, we’re feeling a little rocky – okay, maybe a lot worse than just rocky – and not at all sure we’re prepared for what’s ahead, or even if we have it in us to deal with the challenges.

Indeed, our bodies and minds are screaming for it, is to drink or do drugs again. Maybe our drug of choice was a combination of alcohol and drugs and gambling, or compulsive sex, overwork, overspending, even overeating. Whatever it was, we each faced a tremendous number and variety of hurdles just to arrive at this point in our path toward sobriety. It was a long haul, and, quite frankly, more than likely very exhausting.

Now, just when we think we should be able to coast, or ease off a bit, we’re learning that the hard work is only beginning. Looking at what we’ve chosen for ourselves, sobriety, is starting to maybe look like an impossible task. Are we really going to find the courage or determination to be able to make it through whatever storm is on the horizon?

Perhaps the best bit of advice anyone can give the newcomer to recovery is to keep on moving forward. Looking backward isn’t productive, since there’s so much in our rearview mirror that we’ve now left behind. There’ll be plenty of time to deal with our recollection and inventory of our past behavior that caused harm to others and to work on making our amends. For now, however, we need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and get down to the business of healing in recovery.

We’re on this ship of recovery, even though the storm clouds may be gathering or a downpour has just occurred. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to stick it out, hold true to our desire to remain clean and sober. We’ll go to the 12-step groups and be present in the rooms. We’ll get a sponsor, learn all we can about how to live a healthier lifestyle, work the steps and get more in tune with our inner self, the one who’s chosen this path of recovery.

We can weather the storm. We’ve got it within us. All we have to do is believe in our ability to do so. No, it isn’t going to be easy all the time. There will be days when it certainly seems as if we’re lugging a tank uphill by our teeth. We’ll be tempted to give up, give in, and numb out. When those kinds of thoughts nag at us, it’s important to keep in mind that the end-goal, recovery, is a journey. It isn’t a destination. We’re in this for the long haul, whatever storms may erupt along the way.