Drugs and alcohol have stolen enough of your life. If you are ready for lasting recovery, the place to begin is with a licensed addiction recovery center.
If you are a person of faith, have been in the past, or desire to be in the future, consider a faith-based recovery program. At the Renaissance Ranch LDS drug treatment center here in Utah, many of our team members (including our CEO and COO) left behind destructive addictions and started their recovery journey thanks to faith-based treatment.
They share the following reasons that faith-centered rehabilitation made all of the difference in achieving and maintaining long-term sobriety.
(Jeremy Yap)
Helps you surrender to the Savior.
Jesus is always the answer, including and especially in addiction recovery. We mortals like to think we can manage everything on our own—our relationships, our desires, our heartbreaks, our weakness. But going it alone is a no-win journey.
The Bible talks about the Savior’s yoke (King James Version, Matthew 11:28-30), which is an apparatus placed on a beast of burden (like an ox). It tethers the beast to a heavy load, allowing the animal to pull that load. Without the Savior sharing your yoke, you will always feel like you are feeling a too-heavy load, one that you were never intended to pull alone. But allow the Savior to pull alongside you, and your burden will become light.
In the highly successful 12-step addiction recovery program, which has been helping people achieve sobriety for nearly 90 years, here are the first three steps:
Step 1. Admit we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2. Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3. Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of [a higher power].
Why must every addict using the 12-step program work through these steps first? Because learning to stop relying on ourselves and relying instead on God and Jesus is the only thing that will allow us to overcome our weaknesses. You may worry that you will never be enough, but because of the Savior’s atonement, you will always be enough.
Helps you develop the spiritual habits you’ll need for long-term sobriety.
Has addiction pulled you away from spiritual habits? The ones that help you feel the Lord’s presence in your life?
Those little, daily devotions may seem small—studying scriptures, communicating with the Lord through daily prayer, going to church on Sundays, etc. But these are the very things that get you into a strong relationship with your Savior. They allow you to step away from the chaos of life and focus on Him. They help you stay humble, recognizing that you need Him every hour. They give you a chance to reflect on your thoughts and actions, repent as needed, and recommit to do better tomorrow.
A Christian treatment center can get these daily habits into your muscle memory. That way, these habits can stay with you and keep you feeling connected to the Savior long after you’ve left rehab.
Helps you truly heal.
For most of us, there’s an underlying reason we started using drugs or alcohol. We may have been trying to cover physical or emotional wounds that had left us feeling fearful, rejected, abandoned, depressed, lonely, ashamed, out of control, or in overwhelming physical pain. If you slap a bandage on those wounds, they are going to keep on bleeding. You’ve got to treat the wound itself.
Jesus Christ is the master healer. In the course of the atonement, he was afflicted with these very same wounds, so he uniquely knows how to heal them. He alone can forgive you for the unforgivable, love you when you’re the most unlovable, calm your fears, mend your broken heart, and turn your shame into a bright hope. True healing can only come through Him.
Gives you a sense of purpose.
When addiction takes center stage in your life, important questions stay relegated to the wings. But in addiction recovery, most people find themselves grappling with them. Who are you really? What are you doing on this earth anyway? Where are you headed?
A faith-based treatment center provides the environment for answering these questions from an eternal perspective. You will be surrounded by teachings and ideas and people that remind you that your true identity is not that of a substance abuser. You are a beloved child of God with a clear purpose on this earth. As you grow closer to your Heavenly Father and Jesus in a faith-filled environment, you can better understand the specific ways that the Lord would like you to fulfill that purpose.
Connects you with a supportive, uplifting community.
If the people you hung out with when you were using encouraged your addiction, there will be risks to returning to that community. This is where many people falter. In the absence of a community that brings out the best in them, they return to the comfort of old relationships that sabotage what they worked so hard for in addiction recovery.
A faith-based recovery program helps ferry people across this fraught transition. It links them to a ready-made faith community that is ready and waiting to cheer them on through worship, ministering, and social activities. Many congregations even have their own addiction recovery support groups where you can find a new home among people who believe as you do and are working through the same challenging issues. They’ll have your back.
Turns you outward.
We don’t have to tell you that addiction turns you inward. Where you may not naturally be a selfish person, addiction leaves you looking out for #1. A Christian-based rehabilitation center can help you look outward as the Savior did. It can point you toward the values of selflessness, service to others, forgiveness, and unconditional love.
An addiction treatment center should do more than just get you to stop using. It should help you make the fundamental changes needed to sustain lifelong sobriety. If you’re ready for that mighty change of heart, a Christian treatment center may well be the perfect environment for beginning again.