Three Top Myths About Recovery
Are you thinking about going into a residential drug treatment center to kick your drug or alcohol habit? Undoubtedly you’ve been mulling over in your mind the pros and cons of getting some help, and your closest friends and family members have contributed their two cents’ worth. Here are the most common myths about recovery:
Recovery Means Deprivation
It’s depressing to think about a future without your favorite substance of choice. Going to a party without a drink? Unthinkable! Spending a lazy Saturday without some of your favorite whatever? Horrors! But that’s why residential treatment yields such impressive results over outpatient treatment. In outpatient treatment—which you do need to try before going into residential—you are seeing a counselor one or several times a week, but you are still in the midst of the people, places, and things that make you think of using. Many people even go to their outpatient meetings high.
Residential treatment interrupts your life so that you have a chance to refocus your goals. Once you are off drugs or alcohol for a while, you will remember the things in life that motivated you from the time when you were young. You will rediscover old skills or hobbies you once enjoyed. You will be so busy renewing your acquaintance with yourself that you won’t have time to feel deprived.
Recovery Solves All Your Problems
That’s like someone who is overweight thinking that if she drops some pounds, she will get a new boyfriend, find a better job, get rid of daily aches and pains, and help scientists discover a cure for cancer. Maybe one of those things might happen, but that’s it.
You go into recovery with a whole bag of problems, and using your substance of choice has just been your way of avoiding them. Time in recovery gives you the opportunity to confront your problems so that you can look for solutions. Are you living with an abusive person? Do you have unresolved issues with a parent? Have your finances gotten out of control, most likely from your lifestyle choices? These are all things you can address while you are in treatment.
You will learn how to better cope with your problems. If you have an addictive personality, you will learn how to avoid switching one addiction for another. Just like anyone, your work on yourself will constantly remain in a state of progress.
You Have to Hit Rock Bottom
There are great movies out there that show someone who hits the lowest point of his life and only then reaches out for recovery. Did you see Denzel Washington in last year’s movie, Flight? It’s only when he considers besmirching the reputation of someone else who has died a hero that he realizes he has had enough. That’s what hitting rock bottom means for many alcoholics and drug abusers: It’s not that you’ve finally spent a night in the drunk tank, or spent all your money, or driven your car into an innocent bystander while you were high. You don’t have to get that low to stop using; you just have to reach the point in your life when it really is enough. If you are already sick and tired of waking up hung over, then reach out for help. Make that call to a local residential drug treatment center and ask them how to change your life.
