Addiction in Early Recovery

What does living a forever life in recovery mean to you ?

For me it is discovery, perspective, humbleness, willingness, pursuit of truth, surrendering to emotions, surrendering to vulnerability....it is the ideal that living my life within the metaphor of "chop wood, carry water" brings my life into focus. By focusing on exactly what is around me, I can now again see the people around me, I can now see the colours of the walls, I can feel that water on my skin. Simplified and present.
By living in this present moment, you bridge the past, present and future simulataneously.
There is purposeful merging of the conscious and unconscious minds when you are willing to feel and receive resolution.

Commit to staying without the act of the addictive pattern.

Start moving forward with the knowingness that nothing has been lost, it all has meaning and it is time to create change.

A changed mind is essential to recovery.

Seeing all that is with a different perspective.
Grounding yourself and just being a part of the life around you.

As a primary care physician who works directly with addicted men in their earliest stages of recovery, I witness the experiences and motivations and gifts that come with arriving face to face with your most intense vulnerabilities.
It is the intensities of these emotionally connected experiences that brings my life meaning.

We all experience the mind of addiction because it is in all of us. Some of us have more intense, unmanageable behaviours than others do, but the mind is the same. More is better and less is unacceptable.
I know absolutely that removing yourself from the environment that exposes you to the temptations is an important first step.
That is why recovery begins in homes where people work providing care in Treatment Centres, Recovery Homes, Community Living Homes.
Immersed in the waters of the behaviour, there is a point where you begin to lose your personal power and your life becomes unsustainable. That is when you know you need a new perspective. Seek out and pursue safe places where you can back away, reassess and be comforted.

Remember, the choice within every moment, every minute is still yours.

You can walk back into the pattern of the addiction at any second and you can make that choice. You are not held by your addiction due to anyone except yourself through your actions and choices.
No one can make you do anything unless you want it as well.
Addiction recovery centres are not jails.
You are there by choice, determination, will, willingness and heart.
Consider social media may be a pull into unnecessary comparisons and drama. Seek tasks that bring peace and a sense of personal contribution to your wellness. Self care is essential when you are facing the parts of yourself that are painful and emotional to look at.

Seek to remove the potential sources of the your power leaks and repair them by asking for and receiving help.

Rest, eat healing foods, exercise, breathe deeply, immerse yourself in water, recover. Breathe. The fastest way to slow down your heart rate and stress response is to take a deep breath and hold it for just that extra second.

You are ok to be ok and also, to be not ok.
I choose to walk, talk and cry at the same time because that is my truth.
Recovery happens when you continue to ask for help and slow down enough to be present.
Listen to respond and avoid reacting immediately to the things happening around you.
Take nothing personally as no one truly knows what it is like to be you.
They know only by what you show them in your choices.

In the early recovery alcohol and drug healing centre I work at, the clients are required 2 weeks of isolation. Gya' Wa' Tlaab is an early recovery centre in northwest BC, Canada. It means "helping each other".
As an early recovery program, there are a few barriers to enter while using addictive substances. There are high risks for people to withdraw from benzodiazepines, opiates and alcohol without hospitalization. When people arrive under the influence, they are assessed as to whether they are safe to detox on site. The clients are educated as to what acute and post acute withdrawal stages will look and feel like.
For those first two weeks, there is no socializing in town...just spending time with your new "family", walks outside, regular time at the gym, in-house yoga, acupuncture, listening to peaceful music, starting the morning writing and speaking about your gratitude journal, sharing of stories and space with previously unknown others who are there with a common purpose, ending the day with self reflection and more writing and sharing about this.

There is much power in the ability to regain your healing space and solitude without needing to be completely isolated. The men share the responsibilities of taking care of the living space and the impact their existence has around each other. Healing starts now.
Getting back to the basic comforts that create your life around you. Waking at the same time. Eating three times per day, at the same time. Exercising in some way every day. Getting blood moving and strength back. Maintaining good hygiene and being willing to help each other be reasonable and responsible. Things you would think you would never take for granted, but still they suffered as you suffered in the unmanageable addictive behaviours.
Expect within the first week of isolation from your life on the "outside", there may be some impatience and irritability. This is the feeling of fighting against control. The control from the behaviour as it is in the action. A pattern that was all-consuming in its prime. Not that long ago, you would have walked over broken glass if it meant that you could have another taste.
Be patient with yourself and others. Change is a process, not an event.

What is the high of addiction to you?
A sick contentedness that this feeling is more important than you are ?
The dragon carries you high but what goes up must come down. Does this drop leave you feeling physically sick ?
How is this addiction larger than you ? How is it that you would not be ok without it ?
These are lies.
This is not truth and it does not serve you. You can be more than that experience. Your pain can become purpose.
You are a sum of many experiences and you have changed before.
You can change again.
It is possible.
Everything is possible.