Deciding to begin a journey of recovery starts with you. You choose your recovery. Addiction is a brain disorder that is chronic but treatable. Maintain the idea that you can overcome addiction. You need to make the decision to change and consider your needs. Change begins with a declaration of needing help and a desire to change.
There are several factors to consider when deciding to recover from abuse of alcohol or other substances. The beauty of choosing to recover is your ability to change problems into solutions. You must approach the decision of recovery with clarity and a sense of possibility. You can make recovery a reality if you approach the process mindfully and with purpose.
What Is Your Purpose for Recovery?
Having a reason to recover is critical to boosting your resolve. You can look at your life and find many reasons to recover. Your main reason may involve being a better parent, friend, family member, or member of the community. You may want a better job. Perhaps these reasons are too big. Maybe the most significant grounds for recovery is staring back at you in the mirror: yourself. You deserve recovery.
You deserve to be happy and healthy. You deserve to feel proud of your body and who you are as a person. Choosing recovery means choosing life over shame. When you pursue recovery, you are pursuing yourself. Pursuit of your best self is the best purpose for recovery.
Recovering for others will not bring you closer to recovery. Instead, choosing to recover for others might lead to frustration and resentment. Your reason for recovery must be personal and able to keep you on the road to recovery even when recovery seems impossible; only with such a strong purpose is recovery possible.
Setting Up Supports
Being mindful about choosing recovery means evaluating current supports. Your existing supports include family, friends, community resources, and professional resources. Consider assessing how each of these support opportunities can help you through recovery. Consider their availability and how each can best help your needs as you pursue recovery.
Family and friends can supply excellent personal support. Given their closeness to you and your recovery, you must evaluate how these people can help you through your recovery. You must also consider if these persons will hinder your recovery. If a person is unable to support your recovery, you might have to consider whether you want them on your support team.
Community resources are an invaluable source of support for those in recovery from abuse of alcohol or other substances. Churches, 12-Step groups, sports teams, and other community activities provide you with people who know you outside of your use of alcohol or other substances and can remind you of hope beyond addiction. These resources will also supply opportunities for new activities and meeting new people.
Professional resources are also a valuable tool for many who are overcoming the battle against alcohol or other substances. Renaissance Ranch provides a wide variety of supports for any stage of recovery. Identifying professional resources that are a fit for you and your needs can take time but should not be put off. You must also have an idea of what you want from your team of professional supports: medication, counseling, group therapy, family therapy, or advice on how to find extra support in your community.
You Are a Survivor
You are a survivor. Your use of alcohol or other substances was a means of surviving and adapting to difficult circumstances. Now, you need to consider further survival. According to some professionals and persons in recovery, there are three stages of recovery: victim, survivor, thriver. You have experienced trouble in your life, and as a means of surviving, you used alcohol or other substances. The time has come to move from surviving to thriving.
Changing learned behaviors is not impossible but will likely seem difficult in the beginning stages. As stated earlier: addiction is a chronic but treatable brain disorder. This disorder has changed the way your brain interacts with various stimuli in your life, leading to altered brain chemistry.
Benefits of Change
The benefits of recovery outweigh the struggle. You may not believe this truth in the beginning stages. You will begin to trust this, though, when you see your bills being paid, your family smiling, and your children wanting to spend more time with you. You will learn to trust recovery when you feel a sense of pride in your actions. You will no longer have to hide your behaviors, nor will you have to hide your fears and anger. In recovery, you will find purpose and joy, which far outweigh the struggles of pursuing recovery.
Remember: you are worth recovery, and help is available.
Choosing recovery can be a difficult choice, which, when approached properly, can lead to a more sustainable recovery. Finding purpose and identifying your supports are two significant elements of the beginning stages of recovery. Recovery is a choice, and only you can decide if you are ready to change. Help is available when you are ready. You do not have to struggle alone. There are people prepared to support you and who understand your pain. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction to alcohol or other substances, help is available. At Renaissance Ranch, we know recovery is not easy and that your decision to pursue recovery was difficult. Be not afraid; help is here. We offer a clinically driven and gospel-centered approach to treatment for every step of the process. We are waiting for your call. Call Renaissance Ranch today at (801) 308-8898 and learn how we can help you heal from addiction.