Addiction is a serious problem that is more than capable of destroying a person’s life from the ground up. One of the worse things about addiction is the fact that by the time a person realizes the first symptoms, they are already in over their head and the thought of recovery can be overwhelming.
Many people trapped in addiction want to change their lives for the better but simply feel as if there is no way out. Trust me, there is a way out and believe it or not, it all starts with the person who is experiencing the addiction. Positive thinking is much more powerful than a lot of people realize. While it may be hard to believ, you can use positive thinking, in combination with other personal development skills to kick addiction to the curb!
Check out this helpful article on addiction and recovery from Spiritual River.
One of the most important aspects of recovery from addiction is self-development. In fact, we could go so far as to say that personal development is recovery. Recovery is personal growth. If you are not growing as a person in recovery and learning new things and pushing yourself to create a new life, then you are likely sliding backwards towards a relapse. It is that simple. You have to grow in order to thrive in recovery.
There are a couple of reasons that personal growth is so important for recovery from addiction. Let’s take a look:
Personal growth – If all you do is sober up and stay away from drugs and alcohol, then not much will necessarily change in your life. One of the keys to recovery is that you have to push yourself a bit to achieve new things. Some people shun the idea of goal oriented living, but it is usually leaps and bounds better than our old way of life that we had in active addiction. Set some goals and start reaching for them, and your recovery will naturally get better as your life improves.
Self-esteem – most people underestimate the importance of self-esteem in recovery. Nearly every single addict and alcoholic is suffering from some form of screwed up self-esteem in their lives, regardless of how they come off to the world, as many of them are actively covering it up with a show of anger. But underneath it all, if the drug addict does not learn how to start truly valuing themselves and their lives, then they will have no real protection against the threat of relapse.
So how can you focus on self-development and build healthy self-esteem?
There are couple of things you can do in recovery to pursue this path. Obviously there are no right or wrong answers here, but there are some great suggestions:
1) Find a way to reach out and help others in recovery – if you can do this on a consistent basis, then it will make a huge difference in building up your own self esteem. This will strengthen your own recovery a lot.
2) Find your passion and purpose in recovery and start pursuing it. Set goals and meet them. Find out what gets you excited and start moving towards it.
Image Credit: River Recovery Church
To see the whole article as well as other useful information on recovery, Spiritual River
