When we’re still struggling with our addictions, even in the midst of our recovery, many of us have a very hard time committing to our sobriety, and for many different reasons. Some of us are afraid to do the challenging work of getting sober, of facing our emotions without anything to numb ourselves to them. We’re afraid to confront our fears, our emotional wounds, and our traumatic experiences. We’ve been suppressing our pain and trying to escape it for so long that sobriety feels not only daunting to us but emotionally unbearable. Some of us have decided that recovery is impossible for us, especially when we’ve already relapsed, and we’ve come to think of ourselves as incapable of getting sober. Many of us are hesitant to commit to sobriety because we associate it with having to give up the drug of choice we love, and with having to sacrifice the things we feel we need in order to cope with our lives. We associate sobriety with having to leave behind our friends who are addicts, the people we use with, who fuel our addictions as we do theirs. We’re afraid of losing our drugs of choice, which we’ve come to associate with happiness and with escaping our pain. Getting high can make us feel more at ease, more confident, and more relaxed. When we make the conscious choice to get sober, we’re making a commitment to ourselves. We discover over time that it’s so worth moving through the fears we have around sobriety and that once we face those fears, we give ourselves a chance at real happiness. We learn how to cultivate genuine joy within ourselves, without needing to rely on anything or anyone outside of ourselves.
Acknowledging Our Fears
Saying yes to sobriety means acknowledging the fears we have instead of continuing to suppress them and avoid thinking about them. When we feel afraid of recovery, for example when we’re resistant to the idea of going to rehab, we use our drugs of choice to distract ourselves from how nervous, confused, and overwhelmed we feel. When we’re ready to take on the work of recovery, we decide to push ourselves to face our fears, rather than trying to hide from them. A huge part of recovery is summoning our own courage. We get to the point where we’re tired of letting our fears get the best of us. We’re fed up with feeling paralyzed by our fear. We’ve grown increasingly frustrated with our addictions and the countless ways in which they’ve held us back over the years. We realize that our fears have only as much power over us as we give them. We can only be destroyed by our fear when we allow ourselves to be.
Choosing Self-Love
When we commit to recovery, we commit to ourselves and our well-being. We’ve grown in our self-love, and after all the pain we’ve experienced because of our self-hate and self-destructiveness, we realize that committing to our recovery is an act of self-love. Healing ourselves of the pain fueling our addictions is making the choice to love ourselves. We’ve been neglecting ourselves and allowing our feelings of self-hatred to run rampant and take over our lives. Our addictive patterns have been fueled by how little we think of ourselves. Saying yes to our sobriety is about reclaiming our lives, and choosing to believe that we’re worthy of self-love.
Losing Loved Ones
One of our biggest fears around recovery is that we’ll have to lose the people most important to us. We know that some of our relationships won’t survive our sobriety. Many of us are in relationships with other addicts, and our recovery can be a complex issue for us. Some of us find that our loved ones get angry with us for choosing sobriety instead of continuing to live in addiction alongside them. They can feel that we’re abandoning them by moving onto a new chapter in our lives that doesn’t include them. They can feel neglected when we’re no longer prioritizing them when we’re choosing sobriety over getting high with them. They can resent us when they see us working to improve our lives because they feel disappointed in themselves and their own lack of progress.
Prioritizing Ourselves
Knowing we may lose certain relationships can keep us from making the decision to get sober. We can be driven by our fears, especially when we aren’t aware of them and mindful of them. Committing to our sobriety means becoming conscious of our fears, including our fears around the relationships we might lose and the sacrifices we might have to make. Choosing sobriety means deciding that our well-being and peace of mind have to be our priority, over everything else, including our relationships.
Developing Self-Awareness, Mindfulness, and Courage
When we aren’t quite ready to commit to the recovery journey, it’s often because we have persistent fears that we haven’t addressed yet. What is keeping you from getting sober? What are you afraid of? How are your fears blocking you from finding happiness and peace in your life? Asking ourselves these important questions increases our self-awareness and the mindfulness we have around our addictions. We get to know ourselves more. We connect with ourselves more honestly, and we come to understand ourselves on a deeper level. We motivate ourselves to summon our courage and face our fears. We become more and more empowered to say yes to our recovery, and to ourselves.
Are you ready to take the first step on your journey to recovery?
Call The Guest House today! 855-483-7800.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488