Breaking free from addiction
When someone is experiencing active addiction, many casualties come along the way. This can mean severely fractured relationships with loved ones, including: spouses, children, parents and siblings. Careers become less of a priority, so the likelihood that a job has been lost is very high. When someone loses a job, they can obviously no longer pay for their bills, so they may have also lost their living situation and could even become homeless. The likelihood for associating with criminals and being in bad neighborhoods is extremely high, and this can lead to unscrupulous activity we wouldn’t normally take part in, or even jail time.
Everyone’s addiction is different, and the things that it affects is different. It can be anything from a divorce, to homelessness, and everything in between. All of the things that addiction has affected could be consequences that last a lifetime. Luckily, you can get help and you do not have to be defined by your mistakes. Breaking free from your addiction and living a clean, sober lifestyle will allow you to change your life and become the best possible version of yourself.
Entering inpatient rehab
Making the decision to change your life and enter inpatient rehab can be difficult. There can be a lot of shame that comes along with admitting you have a problem, even more so when you decide that you need help, and these feelings are normal. It is difficult for people to ask for help for just about anything in general, but it is especially true for people who need to change the lifestyle they have been defending for so long. Luckily these feelings will quickly subside upon entering inpatient rehab, because you will immediately be met with a supportive, caring staff ready to put all of your needs first.
Family support
One of the most important aspects of recovery is realizing that addiction is a family disease, and treating it as such. During inpatient rehab, we work very hard with both the client and their family to treat emotional wounds and work on getting them all on the same page. Families are often left to pick up the pieces of their loved one’s addiction, and this can result in a lot of resentment and hurt feelings from the family. Being able to repair this and give the client a loving, supportive environment to return home to is extremely important. This includes anything from group family therapy, setting boundaries and having a plan in place in the event of a relapse occurring.
Making amends
Asking for forgiveness is difficult. It is difficult for anyone for even the smallest of reasons, let alone a mistake caused by your addiction that has severely impacted someone’s life. However, it will be the only way to move past your shortcomings and begin to rebuild your life. Making amends is one of the 12 steps in the 12 step program, and is very helpful when repairing things that your addiction has disrupted. As the saying goes, “if you work it, it works” so making the motions through the 12 steps will give you a great framework for rebuilding your life and staying sober moving forward.
The 12 Steps
Here are the 12 Steps as defined by Alcoholics Anonymous:
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings
- Made a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Living life as the real you
The person you were while you were in the midst of active addiction is not the real you. Your brain was chemically altered by drugs or alcohol, and you may have done a lot of things that you wouldn’t normally do had you been sober. You are not defined by the actions you made while in addiction, rather, you will be defined by changing your life for the better and striving to become a better person. Humbly asking for forgiveness, reaching out for help and accepting the advice given to you by professionals and people who have walked in your shoes will give you what you need to get back what addiction has made you lose. It may not seem like it now, but a better life is ahead and waiting for you.
About Pinelands Recovery Center
Asking for help is difficult, but it is the only way to be able to get back what addiction has made you lose. Rebuilding your life and making amends with people who have been affected by your addiction takes time and patience. However, it can be achieved, and we are here to help lead you every step of the way.
Pinelands Recovery Center of Medford is widely known as one of New Jersey’s finest, most respected addiction treatment facilities. With comfortable 30-bed accommodations and a 24-hour professional staff, we can offer clients a serene, relaxing environment amid the serene forest environment. This stress-free setting with its sense of warmth and welcoming enables you to feel comfortable and confident about your clean and sober life ahead.
We will establish clear goals, both general in nature and specific to your needs. We continue to monitor those goals, to make sure that our clients are progressing and buying into their recovery plan. We thrive on assisting clients in feeling connected to the recovery community, share and demonstrate effective coping techniques, help clients to modify attitudes and patterns of behavior and everything else you will need to be happy and productive living a sober, healthy life.
We ensure that clients complete their planned concrete tasks, encourage hope, optimism and
healthy living. Our recovery program is not a revolving door treatment program; it is a recovery model designed to help clients go on to lead productive, happy lives. For more information, visit pinelandsrecovery.com