Creative Life Recovery

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Drug addiction recovery is all about finding a new way to live. If you are looking for guidance about how to go about overcoming drug addiction then you are in the right place.

Being a newcomer in recovery is an especially delicate time because we tend to be overwhelmed in early recovery and the chance of relapse is so high. It is much easier to revert back to what we know how to do (use drugs) than it is to forge ahead with a new decision and a new way of life.

Now after someone has been clean from drugs and living in recovery for several years this becomes much more automatic and natural to them. But in early recovery, staying clean can be a monumental challenge–even to do it for just one more day. Hence the day-at-a-time philosophy that is toted by so many recovery programs.

If you or someone you know is facing early recovery, what can you do to increase your chances of success? The most useful idea is to benefit from the knowledge of others - use the information given freely from other recovering addicts about what worked for them and what did not.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Simply use what has worked for others in achieving recovery.

12 step programs offer instant networking and support

The vast majority of the treatment industry is based on the 12 step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. If you go to a treatment center or drug rehab in order to get clean, chances are very good that you will be exposed to these types of programs as they are basically the standard these days. Yes there are other programs out there but the industry remains at least 95 percent 12 step based. Not only that, but 12 step meetings are widespread and can be found in practically any city or town around the world.

Given this picture of the treatment landscape, it makes sense to use 12 step meetings as a pillar of support in your early recovery. Even if you do not necessarily believe in the 12 step philosophy, the level of support that you can get from this fellowship is really high, because they are so widespread and established. Therefore, I recommend to newcomers to involve themselves with meetings and to try follow the traditional “90 meetings in 90 days” suggestion, just to get a baseline of support for themselves.

It is possible to recover without a 12 step program, but you have to ask yourself where you are going to get peer support from.  We benefit greatly from knowing others who are on the same journey that you are on. This support is critical, especially in early recovery, so take an honest look at where that support will come from if not from 12 step meetings.

Sponsorship or recovery coaching can help

One suggestion that you will hear over and over again if you attend 12 step meetings is that you need to get a sponsor. I would generally agree with this as being good advice, but would also take this a step further and recommend a recovery coach as well.

How does a recovery coach differ from a sponsor? A sponsor is someone who takes you through the 12 steps and helps guide you towards a spiritual experience. A recovery coach is someone who connects you with resources and works with you on your own personal goals that you want to achieve in your life. There is a difference and I would argue that a sponsor is more important for early recovery, while a recovery coach becomes more and more valuable the longer you stay clean. This is because there will be a shift as you progress in recovery: from focusing on daily abstinence from drugs, towards eventually focusing on personal growth and development.

Why the shift? Because recovery is a learning process in which the first lesson is essentially “how to live without drugs and be content with yourself.” This is the initial lesson in recovery and it might only last for a few months to a few years for most people. Now after this first learning process is over then it becomes automatic and the person has established a baseline of clean time and is now living drug-free. So what is the next lesson in recovery?

The next lesson is how to keep what you’ve got. Now that you have learned how to live a clean life, you have to learn how to keep it. This is much more difficult than it sounds and so the real enemy here is fighting complacency. This is what makes a recovery coach so valuable as you progress in recovery. The coach can challenge you to grow and develop as a person in new and unique ways, thus keeping you active and avoiding the threat of relapse. If we stagnate in recovery and stop growing then relapse will eventually take us. Overcoming complacency is all about pushing ourselves to grow further and further in recovery.

The shift to long term recovery: creating your new life

In traditional recovery programs, the focus is on a spiritual transformation in order to allow you to maintain abstinence.

I would challenge you to frame this idea in new terms: your challenge should be to create a new life for yourself in recovery. Yes there is still a spiritual element involved, and spirituality is still a part of your personal growth. But the creative life in recovery goes beyond a one-dimensional solution and takes a more holistic approach.

We are always in the act of creating our life for ourselves, whether we are aware of it or not. So choose to create positive things and choose a path of growth for yourself. This is the key to a lifetime of success and growth in recovery and if you want to stay clean from drugs then you must actively pursue this creative life.

When we first get clean and sober it will be difficult to take a creative approach at first. But this will change over time as we learn how to live without drugs. Eventually we will learn how to live a clean life and the new challenge becomes learning how to maintain that clean life. Doing so requires continuous growth and that is why we focus on the creative life. If you need help with the first lesson (learning how to live clean) then your primary resources are meetings and sponsorship. If you need help maintaining your recovery then your primary resources are the creative approach to recovery and possibly a recovery coach.

What stage of recovery are you in and what are your primary resources?

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Interested in trying coaching services?  We recommend Keith Bray.

You can email him at khbray@hopeserenity.ca

or call him at (905) 477-7972

Keith will include one free session of coaching to see if recovery coaching is right for you.