Expectations in Recovery

By: Amy Marcle

Whether you are entering a recovery program by choice or
against your will, there are some situations you need to be aware of going
forward.   Below are a few things you can expect during
your addiction recovery journey.1.    
 RECOVERY IS A LIFELONG JOURNEYTreatments for physical sickness and injury are often simple compared to treatment for mental illness and addiction.  If you have a broken bone, you wear a cast for six weeks and then you are healed. 
If you have a sinus infection, you take a course of antibiotics and then
you are better.  This is not the case with addiction.  There is never a time in
your life you can say you “once was an addict.” 
You are and always be an addict. 
But what type of addict you are is up to you.  Are you a recovered addict?  Are you an addict in therapy?  Addiction does not go away.  If you are presented with the situation to be
involved in the addictive behaviors you have walked away from, you will be
enticed again.  Those in addiction
recovery have to work daily to fight off the demons and urges they may have to cater
to their addictions.  You have to be on
guard at all times in order to protect your mental health as well as your
physical health.  That does not mean you
have to attend counseling every day or stay in a treatment facility the rest of
your life, it means you have to have the emotional awareness to stay away from
temptations that could easily send you down the destructive path you have
worked so hard to stay off of. Recovery takes time.  You did not find yourself in over your head
overnight, and you will not find yourself recovered overnight.  Once you accept the fact that you have an
addiction, you become a work in progress. 
But we are all a work in progress, aren’t we?  Recovery needs to be a time of pause and
self-reflection.  You should never try to
rush through your recovery.  Take the
time you need to heal your mind, your body, and most importantly your
soul. 

2.      FRIENDSHIPS WILL CHANGELet’s face it.  Even though we cannot blame others for our
addictions, we often find ourselves associating with the wrong types of people
during our self-demise behaviors.  Life
often finds us being like the people we hang around, whether good or bad.  If you were drawn into your addiction by
people who told you your new addictive habits were “fun”, you cannot be around
those people anymore.  You cannot heal in
the environment you got sick in.  Read
that line again.  YOU CANNOT HEAL IN THE
ENVIRONMENT YOU GOT SICK IN.   Although
your friends may have had good intentions at first, they also may be part of
the reason you have an addiction.  Were
you trying to please someone?  Were you
drinking to get over someone?  Did you
take drugs to be the “cool” person at work or school?   Unfortunately, peer pressure does not only
apply to teenagers.  Adults also succumb
to peer pressure daily.  IF drinking is
your problem, you need to explain to your friends the reason you cannot go with
them for drinks after work, or why you cannot have a beer with them at the
ballgame.  Never give up your sobriety or
your progress to please or to punish other people.  Your sobriety is yours.  It is a gift you are giving yourself, and
nobody else has the right to take it away from you.  Along the same lines, if you are like me
and you battled an eating disorder, you need to reach a level of self-awareness
and emotional intelligence of what you are going to view as trigger points in
your recovery.  For me, I had to unfollow
several friends on Facebook who were constantly posting selfies at the gym or
taking photos of the healthy “low fat” meals they had prepared for
themselves.  I had to unfollow people who
were doing what they needed to do for themselves to be healthy, but to me it
was a trigger point.  Seeing the weight
loss of others, although it was making them healthy, was a competition to
me.  If they were losing weight, I needed
to show I could too.  I also had to
unfollow friends and family who posted negative comments about those who
suffered from eating disorders.  I cannot
count the number of times I have argued with friends on social media when I
hear them calling out someone for their weight or their eating habits.   To
keep from creating unnecessary drama, I simply distanced myself from people who
refused to find ways of understanding mental health. My friendships changed for other reasons
too.  When I entered recovery, my entire
outlook had changed.  I had learned to
appreciate the value of real relationships and not fake ones.  I had learned that friendships should not be
based on people we “want to be like” but rather form relationships with people
who we do have similarities with.  When I
was in high school and college, I often was described as being “little miss
perfect.”  I was a preacher’s kid, made
straight A’s, never got into any trouble, you know the prissy type.  I was the type who probably turned my nose up
at people with addictions because I did not understand how someone could throw
their life away over drugs or alcohol. 
And then I became an addict and my outlook changed.  Once I was in recovery, I found myself
wanting to talk with people who understood the recovery process.  I wanted to have discussions with people who could
talk with me about their addiction recovery stories.  I understood their choices and why they made
the decisions they made, and just as important, they understood my reasons
too.  I needed to nurture relationships
with emotional intelligence, not relationships they were meaningless.  I found myself more at home with a bunch of
sinners than I did so-called saints.  I
learned that the people who judge you are not your friends, the people who
understand you are the friends you need.3.      EXPECT PHYSICAL CHANGESNot only will you experience mental
and emotional changes during recovery, but you will also experience physical
changes as well.  Addiction not only
affects your mental health, but also your physical well-being. Regardless of
your addiction, the stresses of living an addictive lifestyle can leave you
physically ill.  When you are addicted to
a substance whether it’s alcohol, drugs, or caffeine, you become physically
dependent on that drug either to attempt to reach a “high” or to feel better,
or sometimes to feel nothing at all. 
Going through initial withdrawal from your addiction is a difficult part
of recovery.  You have to give your body
time and allow it to adjust to feeling “normal” again.  Physical changes during eating
disorder recovery seemed to always trigger a relapse for me.  I would mentally make up my mind to change,
but as soon as I saw fluid retention or the slightest increase in my weight, I
ended up relapsing.  While I was in
rehab, the treatment team would remind us to “Trust the process.”   I had to repeat those words to myself every
time I saw physical changes in myself during recovery.  Being addicted to a behavior gives you a
feeling that you learn to feel as normal, and once that feeling is gone,
healthy does not feel normal anymore.  It
is important to know that any negative physical changes you feel during
recovery are temporary and are only setting the stage for a clear=minded,
healthier you!

Keep in mind that recovery is not the same for
everyone.  We are not all the same, even
though we have similar habits and thoughts. 
Each step of recovery is different for everyone.  It does not mean you are not progressing; you
simply have to progress at your level of comfortability, a level that keeps you
on the right path to a NEW YOU!