Some of us have lost everything. Literally everything. All we have is what is left of our health, along with this chronic illness called addiction. Some of us act a little sooner than others, but the one thing we all have in common is that our addiction is in control of our lives, not us. We could continue down the path we are on, and eventually, become just another statistic. But for some reason, we don’t. For some reason, we choose recovery. Why?
Someone Else
We have seen the television interventions, and maybe ours was not unlike those ones. It is often one or more loved ones who care about us and see destructive behaviors and give us the push toward recovery. For some of us, that is enough, but for others, we may not have long term success when we enter recovery because of someone else’s recommendation, no matter how loving it was intended. Still, it is a wake-up call and a catalyst and is always a good enough reason to reach for wellness.
To Save Our Relationships
Ultimatums are very powerful in our decision-making process. It might be a spouse or parent or someone else in our lives that put their foot down and tells us to get help or get out. While this seems like we would always want a loving relationship bad enough to do anything to save it, addiction can be more powerful than even family bonds or other bonds of the heart. But saving a relationship is a great reason for us to choose recovery.
To Save Our Lives
We have had our fun, and now we have health problems. Serious health problems. Maybe even potentially fatal health problems. Perhaps our doctors have told us to sober up or we will die. When faced with our own mortality, sometimes, that is enough to jolt us into action. Despite the power of addiction, there is always a little part of us that wants to live, wants to be healthy. And recovering our lives quite literally is a very important reason to seek treatment.
Because We Really Screwed Up
Addiction allows us to do things that we would never otherwise do. Ever. Perhaps our rock bottom involves criminal activity. Perhaps while drunk or high, we caused an accident or someone died because of our negligence. Maybe we lost our job, our home, our family, and we have nowhere else to go. While in active addiction, we really screwed up, and now we have been startled by our actions into reaching out to get the help we need so this never happens again.
We Want to Be Human Again
Some of us just get tired of being a slave to drugs or alcohol. We get tired of feeling nothing and then numbing the nothingness. Maybe we are tired of missing out on the lives of those we love because our addictions pull us away emotionally and/or physically. Perhaps we just miss feeling… feeling true love, feeling raw, emotional pain, feeling joy and feeling sadness. When we look in the mirror, we don’t even see ourselves anymore, just a vacant face that is tired of having to find that next drink or that next fix. We want to feel human again.
For Us
The best and most powerful reason is when we Recover Life for ourselves. Self-motivation is one of the best recipes for success, particularly when it comes to addiction recovery. We are tired of being motivated only by substances, we want to have our freedom back. We are tired of disappointing or hurting others in our lives, we want to have our credibility back. We are tired of feeling alone, even if we are surrounded by others. We remember that we used to do and be and enjoy so many different things, and we want that person back.
All of the Above
Perhaps our choice is made by a combination of the reasons listed above, or maybe every single one of them. Maybe we have waited until the addiction has impacted every single facet of our lives. There is no wrong reason to choose recovery. We each make the commitment when we are ready. We all have different motivations and different ways we experience addiction. What we do share in common is the will to live, the desire to improve our situations and break free of our addictions. That motivation will drive us to recovery. And the sooner we choose recovery, the more of our lives we have left to truly live again.
These reasons are just a few of the reasons that we recover. But the external reason we choose recovery is not as nearly as important as just simply making the decision and beginning our recovery journey. We really only have our addictions to lose and everything else to gain in life. What is the reason that you will choose recovery? That choice is yours. To take your life back, call us today at (805) 719-7954.
