How a Recovering Drug Addict can Find Success in Recovery
Here are some tips for recovering addicts to engage the creative life in recovery.
What is creation as it pertains to recovery?
Creation is the answer to the question: “What am I going to do with my life now that I am clean and sober?”
But before you can engage the newcomer in creative efforts, they have to get through stage one recovery. This indicates that they have to find some initial time to be clean and sober before the person can make an effort at creating a new life for themselves.
Succeeding in staying clean and sober for this first part of sobriety can be done through a bunch of different strategies. The most effective method of gaining some sober time in early recovery is to use overwhelming force. This means that the recovering drug addict must go above and beyond what they think is necessary in order for them to stay clean. If they are using meetings, they should go way overboard with attending them and start going to two or three each and every day instead of just one a day. If they are going to treatment, they should consider going to long term treatment instead of just doing a 28 day program. This is using a brute force strategy, and I would argue that it is necessary in order to get through the early part of sobriety. Without using this type of extreme approach, addicts are highly susceptible to relapse and most will never make it past 30 days clean. Using a brute force approach in early recovery is the best way to insure success.
After an addict has established a few months of clean time, they are ready to transition into the creative life of recovery. This means that they are going to create a new life for themselves with real passion and purpose that can replace the drugs and the lifestyle that they used to be so passionate about. Creation is the method by which someone starts filling their life back up with purpose after the chemicals are removed. It is not a workable solution to simply quit the drugs and alcohol and then try to resume a normal life of some sort. For most addicts, there is no “normal,” and a new life must be created in its place. This is the power of creation and it is necessary for long term sobriety.