How to Overcome Your Addiction in the Long Term
Early recovery is a hot topic. I talk about it constantly on this website, as it is such a difficult time in a person’s life and it is so critical for them to get the help and support that they need in order to have a good start on recovery. Nearly everything we focus on here at Addiction Help Resource is about getting people through this tricky time in their life. Early recovery is no walk in the park.
But what about long term sobriety? What about people how have struggled through their first few months or the first few years of recovery and are not dealing with “the rest of their life” while clean and sober? Is it all smooth sailing for them? Do these people ever relapse?
You bet they do. In fact, the rate of relapse remains at a very scary level, regardless of how long people have been clean. Now this is not to say that no one ever enjoys long term recovery, because they definitely do. But realize that long term recovery can be a struggle too, and many will eventually relapse, even after years of clean time.
Why do people relapse? The main culprit is a little phenomenon called complacency. This is when people get lazy and start taking it easy when it comes to personal growth in their lives. It can creep up on people and it can even creep up on people who are still going to meetings every single day. Just because you are participating in a 12 step fellowship and getting addiction help from therapy does not make you immune to relapse. You can still become complacent with a daily meeting routine.
So what is the solution? How can we live in long term recovery so as not to fall victim to complacency and ultimately relapse? The answer is hard to swallow but very simple:
Action.
It is all about action, I’m afraid. If you stop taking action in your life, then you run the risk of relapse. If you stop reaching out and helping others to recover, then you run the risk of relapse. If you don’t take any positive action in your life when it comes to positive growth, spiritual development, self exploration, meditation, exercise, fitness, nutrition, emotional balance, building self esteem, or just generally doing good things for your life and for your health, then yes, you run the risk of relapse.
Take, for example, a recovering heroin addict who is fresh out of heroin treatment. What good is it to them if they just go back to the same environment, try not use drugs, and hit a few meetings here and there? They will be back at it in no time. We need action. We need life changes.
Take positive action every day and your recovery will be that much stronger. Make habits that challenge you to grow and learn and help others. This is the key to long term recovery.
Push yourself every day, and you have no need to fear relapse.
Tags: long term sobriety, overcome addiction, overcome your addiction, your addiction