Live Brave in recovery
Healing from an addiction is some of the bravest stuff I have ever seen people do. There is no doubt that entering addiction recovery is a courageous move. Change is never easy – even when it means that people are leaving a miserable situation for a much better one. To embrace change takes courage and this mental attribute will also be required more in recovery because change forms the core element of any addiction treatment programme. People who are trapped in addiction can suffer greatly. Their obsessions with alcohol and drugs can lead to the destruction of everything they hold dear. It is usually obvious that their addictive behavior is the source of the misery, but the individual may still be unwilling to change for a time. Change takes time. It also takes time to learn to live brave in recovery.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
Whatever it is that we fear most is what we have to face. In fact to live brave in recovery is paradoxically going to be easier and less painful than any life in addiction will be. To face your fears is to overcome them. This is a universal guarantee. It does us no good at all to dismiss such fears out of hand, or to try to bury them deep inside thinking that they’ll just go away by themselves. They never do. Instead, if we fail to deal with them appropriately, they may just rear up twice as vehemently and cause us to stumble and relapse.
“To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” ~Unknown
Courage is considered by many to be one of the most important human virtues. In fact, in Medieval times it was considered one of the four cardinal virtues, and modern addiction therapists definitely agree. The virtues are prudence, justice, temperance and courage. They are an amazing values or principles which will help you live brave in recovery, life or anywhere else for that matter. It’s worth looking the up, aside from just courage, and righting them down. Learning how to be courageous, even if it is just to ask out that person you’ve had your eye on for so long, doesn’t mean not being afraid. It means learning to do things despite your fear.
Come and live brave in recovery with us at Pathways Plett rehab and recovery centre in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa.