Driven by Fear
One of the things that can impede our recovery the most and postpone our healing and stall our progress, is our refusal to keep up with our recovery work. When we stop going to rehab, it’s often because we’re consumed by fear – fear that we’ll fail, fear that we’ll never get sober, fear of being judged by the people around us, fear of doing the hard work. We fear we’ll eventually relapse so we think to ourselves, “why bother? Why try so hard only to ultimately fail and disappoint ourselves along with everyone else in our lives?” We want to spare ourselves the inevitable embarrassment. We decide to quit rather than persevere. We give up on ourselves. We give in to our fears of inadequacy, worthlessness, and failure.
Fearing the Inner Work
When we stop going to rehab, it’s often because these fears have accumulated, and we panic. We discontinue our work and wind up right back where we started, using our drug of choice and feeling miserable about it. We’re filled with disappointment, shame, remorse, and regret. We hate that we’re hurting our loved ones by leaving rehab early, but we often feel so driven by fear, we feel we have no other choice. Sometimes we feel out of control like we’re losing our minds. We have a hard time thinking clearly and controlling our actions. We feel totally overwhelmed and confused, paralyzed by fear. We feel there’s no way we can stay in rehab, we have to escape. Rehab can feel terrifying. We’re doing inner work we may never have done before. We’re asking ourselves questions we’ve been too afraid to ask – Who am I? Why am I alive? Does my life have a purpose? Can I heal? Why am I an addict? Why do I use my drug of choice? This self-exploration can be daunting and overwhelming, especially if we’re used to suppressing our feelings and avoiding our truth.
Fearing Inevitable Failure
Our fears of failure can be so strong they can stop us in our tracks, even when we’ve started to make real progress in our recovery, even when we’ve already achieved sobriety. We might have relapsed in the past, causing us to believe it’s only a matter of time before we relapse again. We might have witnessed loved ones relapse. We might not know any addicts to successfully quit their drug of choice. Recovery can feel impossible to us, and instead of continuing onward, to give ourselves a fighting chance, to see if we can do it and prove to ourselves that we can, we quit prematurely and stop going to rehab altogether.
A huge hurdle to transcend in our recovery is overcoming these fears, continuing to do the work, summoning our inner strength and courage to stay the course, and staying in rehab even when it gets really tough.
At The Guest House Ocala, we have personal recovery experience
and over 12 years in the recovery industry.
We have helped countless people recover, and we’re here to help you too.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488