One of the core beliefs of Park Ridge Psychological Services is that coerced treatment is almost always inhumane. Everyone has the autonomy to decide for themselves if and when they will be ready to receive help and work through treatment. There need to be supports in place to meet each individual where they are at. The road to recovery often starts with evaluating one’s fears; this will help put feeling and behavior in perspective in order to explore issues with more context. Exposing fears often will bring clarity; the hope is that illicit thoughts and behaviors are driven in the direction of positive goals and sobriety.
The path to recovery in an Alcohol Addiction Recovery Group winds through an environment free of judgment. There are always reasons, stories, and sometimes even long-time buried secrets along with so myriad circumstances that a person experienced that have been hidden by addiction. Often, people judge an individual with addiction; the typical perception of someone with addiction is that “they just cannot seem to keep it together”. Tragically, for years the standard notion was to reject, ignore and avoid the individual with addiction (who cannot recover without our love and support just like anyone else suffering from the devastating effects of an illness).
Facing reality is often the biggest hurdle in the way of recovery. It is often very difficult for individuals with addiction because many addicts use substances for the purpose of avoiding presence and escaping their reality. Eliciting awareness is a huge step toward overcoming the strongholds that maintain addiction. With motivation and encouragement, anyone is capable of improving deliberate self-control and formation of healthy habits. Humans are amazing cognitive and sensing beings who need support and genuine empathy to heal.
Something to remember: whether you have an addictive personality or not, you can always choose to be addicted to life and to your future. Your predisposed personality does not mean that you are incapable of making healthy decisions. We as humans cannot always control our instincts and desires; however, we can control our behavior in response to our instincts. We can choose to “know better”; we can choose healthy obsessions to enjoy that do not self-sabotage. The first choice is to get serious about treatment and to commit to the difficult road to recovery. Going to a rehabilitation or treatment center could be the first step towards your new and better life.
