Sometimes we think that our need for support ends when we finish treatment, where we’ve received resources, help, guidance and inspiration while we laid the foundation for our recovery and started the long process of healing ourselves. Upon leaving treatment, though, we will still need support to help us cope with the ongoing challenges that will arise for us in our recovery. Some of these challenges will be things we’ve prepared ourselves for, while others might take us by surprise and leave us feeling as though we’re failing in our recovery. These tough moments are when we most need support.
When we’re feeling vulnerable and susceptible to relapsing, we’ll want all the support we can get. While no one can keep us aligned with our recovery but ourselves, the support we receive, or don’t receive, can make all the difference. In moments of temptation, when we’re feeling overcome by addictive urges, compulsions, and impulsiveness, we want to surround ourselves by people who know and understand addiction firsthand. We need to be around other recovering addicts, who make us feel heard, accepted, understood and validated. We want to hear their stories, of how they’ve overcome temptation in the past, how they themselves are coping with the same difficult things. We can find ourselves being greatly encouraged and inspired by these stories. We feel less alone. We allow these stories to be guiding, helpful forces in our own recovery journey. We allow ourselves to be motivated by them. Having the support of other recovering addicts can function like a lifeline in some of our darkest times.
Another source of support we can rely on is that of our sponsors, who are themselves recovering addicts but who have also helped coach people just like us who are new to the recovery process. Our sponsors can be there to talk us through moments when we feel weak and on the verge of relapsing. They can help reignite our commitment to our recovery when we feel ourselves faltering. They can help to calm us down and reassure us when we’re feeling like we’re on edge, afraid and vulnerable. We can lean on our sponsors any time we don’t feel like ourselves, any time fear is getting the best of us.
We can find another important source of support in the therapist with whom we form a connection. When we feel safe and comfortable with a therapist, we’ve found a wonderful place to work on healing our fears and resolving our deeply rooted emotional issues. We’re able to be supported as we confront the pain we’ve been suppressing, the limiting beliefs we’ve been clinging to, and the destructive patterns we’ve been perpetuating. We’re empowered to change our habits and create new, healthier patterns. We don’t have to do all of this difficult work alone. We benefit from the guidance, expertise and experience of trained therapists, who have the objectivity and nonjudgmental approach to help us really examine ourselves more honestly and in more depth than we may have ever done before. We can come to consider our therapists as members of our recovery team, teammates who are on our side, helping us to heal and become the best versions of ourselves we can possibly be.
In recovery, we can also find ourselves leaning on loved ones, family members, partners and friends from whom we may have been estranged during our struggles with addiction but with whom we are now rebuilding our relationships. We are reconnecting with people who might have felt they needed to distance themselves from us because we were too toxic and destructive, because we were causing them too much pain. We are healing the wounds we’ve caused and making amends. We’re seeking forgiveness and expressing our remorse. As these relationships heal, we once again have the love and support of the people who mean the most to us, with whom we are closest, and who are most important to us. We felt the loss of these people in our lives acutely. The pain we felt might have contributed to our destructiveness and to our addictive patterns. We sought refuge from our pain in our addictive substances and behaviors. Now we’re able to reconnect with the people we love, and we feel redeemed. We feel forgiven. We feel the fragments of our lives being pieced back together, one by one. We feel ourselves reconnecting with the love we’ve been missing, and it lifts us up and empowers us in our recovery.
Perhaps the most importance source of support we need in our recovery is our own support. We need to believe in ourselves. We need to learn how to uplift and encourage ourselves, even in moments of fear and weakness. We can learn how to affirm ourselves, how to breathe life into our souls and spirits, how to take control of our toxic thoughts and emotions rather than letting them overpower us. We can learn to believe in ourselves unconditionally, to believe in our own worth, and very importantly, in our ability to recover and stay sober. When we don’t believe in ourselves, we’re much more vulnerable to the same self-destructiveness that has been fueling our addictions all these years. Our faith in ourselves, our self-assuredness, our sense of self, our feelings of worthiness and capability are crucial to our healing. We support ourselves in how we think about ourselves, how we speak to ourselves, how we talk about ourselves to others. When we affirm that we are strong enough, brave enough, good enough, we’re showing ourselves love and support. When we believe in ourselves and have faith in our ability to recover, we make it possible for us to actually succeed. We empower ourselves and manifest the healing we want for ourselves.
The Guest House Ocala provides unparalleled, premier-quality treatment to those who suffer from self-defeating behaviors brought on by trauma and its underlying issues. We are uniquely equipped to help our guests heal from trauma-induced substance abuse, process addiction, anxiety or depression in a safe, comfortable and confidential setting. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.