The Journey to a Drug Free Life isn’t Easy, but it is Obtainable
People struggling with drug addiction but want to break free are often afraid that they will fail. The mental images of going through the recovery process, the fear of living a life without drugs, thoughts that they might lose their social group and believing that they might not be successful in the end all keeps them from making that first step on the path to recovery. But everyday people make the journey and they do recover from drug addiction. But this isn’t a process that they can usually do on their own. They need a support community and addiction treatment.
Drug addiction recovery can be found in many different places. If they are lucky it will come in the form of loving family and friends. But they can’t do it alone either. They will need a certified drug treatment program and/or a drug rehab facility. Recovery is a long process that requires a long-term commitment, but help is out there if you are serious and recovery is a very real possibility for anyone willing to make the journey.
Addiction Is More Than Physical
Drug addiction recovery requires more than getting through the physical withdrawal part of the process, it also involves healing your mind and wounded spirit. The mindset that started you towards drug addiction must be replaced by a new mindset, a new way of thinking and you will need to put people around you that will support this new mindset.
Drug addiction recovery is a spiritual process that needs to take place in the mind, heart, and soul and you will to rely on others to help you reach your goals. Your support group of family and friends, a drug treatment program or perhaps counseling, these are the “tools” one will need to be successful on this journey. Not to say that an individual could not persevere and make this journey alone because although rare it does happen but, I’m sure they would tell you in the end it would have been easier with support.
Opioid Abuse and Treatment
The abuse of opioid and other addictive drugs is now a nationwide epidemic that takes victims across geographic, racial and economic lines in America. The opioids bill or the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act aimed at repressing abuse through medication-assisted treatments, wider medication drugs availability and accessibility and other opioid programs. This is the first component of legislation to acknowledge that drug addiction is a public health crisis and not a moral failing.
Recovery
Recovery isn’t something that just happens overnight. Recovery from drug addiction is a process that begins with getting clean, however, that is just the beginning. Recovery will take a while perhaps years and takes commitment. The initial phase of abstinence or not using the drug is probably the hardest but every recovering addict has their story. But abstinence is not recovery. Recovery happens when the addicts mindset actually begins to change. Their lifestyle patterns start to shift, they start to have different friends, different social experiences and start to grow in more positive ways of thinking and acting.
Abstinence requires a decision, recovery requires effort.
Once you have gone through the abstinence phase of withdrawing from a drug addiction, you can open yourself up to begin your mental recovery. Mental recovery is all about brain function and brain chemistry. We train our brains by our thoughts and actions and, for the recovering addict, both must change for the transition to be successful. Mental recovery involves retraining your brain by changing your thoughts, actions and, in some cases, your belief system. Everything you do will need to be geared toward teaching your brain that you do not need drugs to be happy, to get through your problems, to find love or any of the other things you tell yourself that caused you to become an addict in the first place and keeps you in addiction.
The Spiritual Journey
The final journey you will need to make to reach full recovery from drug addiction is the spiritual journey. It does not matter if you are a religious person or not. Recovering spiritually has little to do with God and church and much more to do with your inward attitude toward life and how you want to live that life. When you begin to really recover your spiritual self you will have found the anchor that holds it all in place – the mind, the body, the spirit. When that happens everything will change. The way you look at the world changes: fear will be replaced by faith, self-pity will turn into gratitude and resentment will easily change to acceptance.
The Recovery Process
There are many places for you to start your recovering process. The 12-step program is in every community, town and city in the country and it has worked for thousands of recovering addicts. There are also rehabilitation centers, drug rehabs, addiction counselors and others ready to help you make the journey to recovery, but you truly do need to seek out the help of others if you are serious about making a full recovery. There are very few people who are able to achieve a lifetime of recovery from drug addiction without the help of others both social and professional. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You can have recover successfully from drug addiction once you make the decision that you cannot fail.
The Road To Recovery
However you decide to undertake the journey to recovery, if you are reading this then you know that you or a loved one is needing help. Know that there is help available and if you reach out you can find the help you need. In some areas it may be harder to find but, if you are seriously seeking to live a drug free life there are many that want to help you on that journey. If you are truly seeking you will find the help you need. Do not give up.
Recovering from drug and/or alcohol addiction is a lifelong process. There is no easy way to make the journey… and the path certainly won’t be as easy as the path to addiction but, you can recover, you can have success in your life. You can live a drug free, alcohol free life. But the decision, the first-step is up to you.