So you may be asking yourself–what exactly does it take to succeed in recovery?
Not just to get sober, not just to stay sober, but to actually thrive and live the good life?
Let’s take a look.
First of all – a zero tolerance policy that you fully commit to
The most important thing for your recovery–by far–is the agreement that you make in your own mind, which is this:
“I am not going to use alcohol or addictive drugs, no matter what.”
This is your ironclad promise to yourself that must stand above everything else. Without this one law governing your life, everything else will crumble.
You can’t screw this one up. Everything else has wiggle room. Everything else is negotiable.
You must manage triggers and urges
Now the way that you really implement your zero tolerance decision, on a mental level, is to manage your thought process when you experience a trigger or an urge to use your drug of choice. In short, you must shut down those thoughts immediately.
As soon as you notice an urge to use, shut it down. Redirect your thoughts. Failing that, remember to always “play the tape through,” as they say in some programs of recovery–meaning that you do not just remember the good parts of about using your drug of choice, but you also “play it through to the bad times” that eventually led you to misery and despair.
This idea of managing your triggers and urges absolutely has to become part of your zero tolerance policy. It’s very important because if you do not shut down these thoughts when they occur, your brain will start to reminisce and fantasize about the good old days, and this will, in turn, make you miserable. Why?
Because you are not drinking or using any longer, your brain knows you are “depriving yourself” of your drug of choice. So when you think about the good times, and replay that fantasy in your mind, the comparison just creates misery for you.
Therefore, not only do you swear off taking alcohol and addictive drugs, but you must also swear off “indulging in or reminiscing about the good old days” when you have thoughts of using or drinking. You must shut those thoughts down immediately. That has to be part of your new commitment. It has to become an automatic response for you, in order to protect yourself from relapse.
Your recovery solution has to match the intensity of your addiction
You cannot just walk away from this by saying “okay, I think I’m done with that now, I think I’ll move on with my life and watch Discovery plus with my grandma on Tuesdays.” That would be like trying to replace an overwhelming, monstrous, all-consuming life of addiction with a tiny little tea party on Tuesday afternoon. It’s not going to work.
Your solution has to have the intensity to match the monstrosity that was your addiction.
And that means taking massive, positive action.
And it doesn’t really matter what program of recovery we are talking about, in this case. You can be in traditional recovery meetings, dip your toes into that program ever so gently, and you are going to end up relapsing as a result.
No, the only way to overcome any sort of real substance abuse addiction is to go all in on a solution.
And at the very least, that means striving to take this positive action every single day.
You need a way to engage in a recovery process daily
Addiction is something that, for most people, happens every single day. It absolutely defined my life–from the moment I woke up in the morning, I was thinking about what I was going to use that day, if I had any weed on hand to smoke in order to get me started, and if I had anything more exciting than that to really get me going, and so on. And then by late afternoon I was planning the how and the who’s and the where I was going to drink and “party” that night. My life revolved around substance use.
I figured out very quickly that if I was going to remain clean and sober, it was going to be a daily effort–not something that I could compartmentalize and just do on the weekends.
If I had a really busy 3 day family reunion camping trip happening out of state, I could not just put my recovery efforts on hold and decide to work on recovery when I returned.
Uncle Joe Bob would be guzzling beer by the six pack, and half of my cousins are off in the woods smoking who knows what.
Recovery efforts have to happen daily. You don’t get any time off. The threat of relapse is always going to be present, for the rest of your life.
But luckily, this threat of daily relapse, and the corresponding need for daily action, also contains a “free prize inside:” personal growth.
The big payoff: personal growth
Every successful recovery program, including this one, has to have a carrot at the end of the stick.
No one wants to get clean and sober just to be miserable.
Some programs offer salvation as the reward. Others offer the deep social connections that come from giving back to others in the program.
Introverted Recovery is all about personal growth. Your goals are a bit more open ended, but the main themes are holistic health, eliminating pain points in your life, increasing self awareness, and then striving for your own personal goals.
And those are not just buzzwords when it comes to this program. If you do the work in order to maintain your sobriety, then you will actually be achieving those things. It’s an inevitable byproduct of the system. Your life will improve, you will make and then meet your goals, you will form healthy habits, and things will get better and better.
This really is next level recovery.
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