Early Recovery Tips

Early Recovery Tips

You must face one absolute cold hard fact before you ever need to worry about the tips that follow.

You must admit to yourself that you have an addiction!

No matter how many good intentions you have, no matter your strength or willpower.  This one fact MUST BE ABSOLUTE and until it is you can not begin.  If you have not decided that you are addicted then the following information is useless.  So before you read on say this out loud:  “I have an addiction!  Addiction is not curable but can be controlled.”  If you have said that and believe that, then you are ready to take the first steps to recovery.

The first 90 days are critical! You have not begun the path to recovery until you have gone past the first 90.  So don’t kid yourself about your 28 day treatment, the work is just starting. Never underestimate your addiction. Your disease will lie to you, cheat you and kill you if you let it.  Lives are destroyed and people die with this disease.  It is as simple as that. Open up to others in the program. Group therapy and community time during rehab and after is an outstanding way to remove the isolation caused by drug addiction and experience real breakthroughs. You are almost certainly cross addicted to another substance even if you don’t know it yet, so don’t start thinking you can do something else in its place.  It wont work.

Don’t get discouraged. Relapse is a common occurrence among those attempting to overcome substance abuse issues. And while it can be discouraging, it is important to stay healthy and get back into a drug rehab program as soon as possible for another attempt.  Any delay will just put off the inevitable and will very likely kill you.