Clean Out the Cobwebs and Make Sense of Recovery by Guest Writer Suzanne K

Starting recovery is a bit like entering the funhouse at an amusement park: You never really know what’s ahead. It could be exciting and fun or terrifying and filled with unexpected twists and turns – or both at the same time in varying degrees. The fact is that none of us knows what to prepare for in recovery, especially early recovery. We just move forward, armed with the lessons we learned in treatment, and hope for the best. But everything is still probably a bit fuzzy, so what’s the best approach? Here’s how to clean out the cobwebs and make sense of recovery.

Strive to Become Organized

One way to achieve a more orderly existence – especially important in early recovery when the need for stability is paramount – is to take steps to become more organized. You don’t have to be miss or mister perfectly-organized for this to be an effective technique. You do, however, need to make a concerted effort to get rid of the clutter that’s crowding your life. This includes clutter of all types: physical, emotional, and social.

• Physical Clutter – This is all the stuff around you in your home or office environment. To the extent that you have the ability to make the necessary changes, do what you can to streamline. The best way to approach removal of physical clutter is to keep in mind the Reduce-Reuse-Reorganize principle. Toss out completely unusable, soiled, or unsatisfactory items. Donate what you can to needy charitable organizations. If you’re not sure about something, set it aside in a pile you designate “Maybe” and look through it later. What’s left needs to be reorganized so that everything is neat, clean, and in its appropriate place.

• Emotional Clutter – This is, undoubtedly, a lot harder to clear. Emotions are powerful and can be notoriously persistent. The best way to get rid of the emotional clutter that’s causing you problems is to continually take stock of where you stand relative to being able to deal with life’s daily challenges. When you feel good about your accomplishments or progress toward meeting goals, your emotions should take on a more positive slant. Also continue working with your therapist or counselor or talking things over with your 12-step sponsor, trusted friends, and family members. Their support and encouragement can help you to rid yourself of negative emotional clutter. Sure, you can’t just turn off emotions. But you can learn how to defuse potentially self-destructive ones, and turn your attention to more advantageous pursuits.

• Social Clutter – Coming out of rehab, everything is all-new in the sense that you no longer have the restrictions and constant supervision you did during active treatment. You can see whomever you want whenever you wish. You can go wherever you like at any time of the day or night. This creates both the problem and the opportunity. One of your basic lessons in treatment had to do with learning how to avoid the people, places, and things that cause you to use. Social clutter in recovery – especially early recovery – means you’re allowing too many people to be in your realm of influence. It may be best to limit your social activities for the first few weeks and months of sobriety. Even if you have well-meaning friends, they may not fully appreciate the struggles you went through to overcome your addiction. They may inadvertently say or do something that causes you to slip and, although it’s definitely not their intention, the damage could already be done. Best remedy: Keep to your counseling, 12-step meetings, and interactions with close family during early recovery. You’ll have plenty of time to widen your social sphere as you become more comfortable in recovery.

Increase Your Knowledge Base

A lot has happened since the day you first made the decision to get sober and go into treatment. Everything may still be a blur about those first days in detoxification, and then the early part of your active treatment phase. Depending on the length of your treatment program, you may feel that you got out too soon, while you still weren’t practiced enough to be able to withstand life’s daily challenges. This is a common feeling among those new to recovery and it’s perfectly natural. The way to counter this feeling of uncertainty is to continue to increase your knowledge base. In this case, the knowledge base has to do with recovery itself.

Make a list of books on recovery, either that your counselor or 12-step sponsor recommends or those that you research on the Internet. You can buy them through Amazon or some other online book site, or borrow them for free from your local library. Spend your free time (when you’re not working, going to counseling, 12-step meetings, or meeting other obligations you have) reading how others worked to achieve a successful recovery.

Just as addiction is unique to everyone, so, too, is recovery. No one has a lock on a single route to effective recovery, and anyone who says they do is either overly optimistic or trying to gain a marketing advantage. But there are individual stories, and examples of things that worked for them in their journey to recovery. You may be able to adapt what worked for them to your own situation. Or you may, after reading an account, have an idea of something entirely different that you can try. The point is that reading about others’ paths to recovery will let you know in no uncertain terms that you are not alone in your quest. Others have and will continue to enter this exciting but uncertain phase. If nothing else, reading others’ accounts will show you that there are numerous unique ways to approach similar situations. You will have endless suggestions to consider, strategies that may prove beneficial to your own life in recovery.

One other point about reading how others succeeded in recovery: You won’t be bored. In many respects, these books about recovery are like fascinating novels or detective stories. Each is a personal account of searching for and, hopefully, finding the right path to sobriety.

Take it Slow

You want to get on with your life. That’s a given. After all, you’ve been restricted and monitored and depriving yourself for far too long. Naturally, you want to break free and live. Not so fast. While it’s tempting to go out and celebrate – and you certainly do have reason to be joyous now that you’re in recovery – you do need to temper your desire to do so with the realization that maybe you’re not quite ready yet for primetime. What do we mean by that? Quite simply, the real world may be too bright, too busy, too crowded with temptations for you at this time. Instead of jumping back into the things you used to do, or with the same intensity and pace, resolve to take it slow.

Taking it slow also applies to the kinds of self-expectations you have. If you find yourself feeling depressed, anxious, unable to sleep, or plagued by incessant cravings and urges, don’t beat yourself up that you aren’t able to ditch them with the speed and ease you expect to. It takes time to learn how to overcome these feelings. Cravings can be like a gnawing hunger that can drive you crazy – if you let them. Don’t think that you need to go through this alone, either. Make use of your 12-step sponsor and fellowship group allies. Talk things over with them and get their read on it. Hearing how they were and are able to overcome negative feelings, thoughts, and cravings and urges will give you the support and encouragement you need to tackle these things in your own life.

Concentrate on You

The reality of recovery is that many of your closest friends and loved ones are eager for you to be back. This is both positive and negative for you, however. It’s positive in that you need the constant support and encouragement from your network. In fact, effective recovery isn’t possible without a strong support network. But it’s also negative in that you may be pulled in different directions by the wants and needs of those you love and who love or care for you.

While you were in treatment or undergoing a self-imposed hiatus while you got counseling or underwent other therapeutic behavior modification, your friends and family went on about their lives more or less unchanged. Even if some of them participated in family therapy, it’s still your addiction that you’re overcoming. Sure, addiction is a family disease. The addiction of one person affects all others in the family. But even with the knowledge of how their actions may influence/affect your behavior, it’s still your recovery that you need to concentrate on.

In other words, it’s you that you need to take care of now and for the immediate future. You can’t allow yourself to feel guilty that you’re not back in the thick of things with family and friends. In fact, you need to tell them in a clear and emphatic but gentle way that your first priority is your recovery. It cannot be otherwise if you hope to get a sound footing in your journey to sobriety.

Concentrating on you means you don’t take on responsibilities out of a feeling of guilt, or trying to make up for lost time while you were in treatment, or out of a sense of paying back if family members picked up a large part of your rehab tab. Again, it’s natural that you would experience some of these feelings. After all, who wouldn’t? But you can’t allow yourself to become ensnared by the endless pursuit of doing things to make up for or pay back. Not now and, perhaps, not ever. This has nothing to do with making amends – which you will need to do at some point. It’s all in attitude. When the time is right you will be able to do more for others, but you will be doing so not out of need but out of love and honest desire to give. So, for now, just concentrate on you and your recovery.

Ask for Help

When you first entered treatment, this was your first demonstration of asking for help. But the need to ask for help doesn’t end after you conclude treatment. As a person in recovery, there will always be times when you need help in one form or another. And you shouldn’t be ashamed or feel guilty or reticent about asking for help when the time comes.

Asking for help could involve calling your 12-step sponsor when a crisis occurs in your life that threatens to derail your sobriety. It could be that you desperately need to talk to someone who understands the cravings and urges that cropped up out of the blue months after you began recovery – and thought you had all those conquered. You may need help in trying to restructure your financial situation, or rebuild a damaged relationship, or learn how to better communicate with your spouse, partner, children, or other loved ones. Perhaps you need help in getting a job, securing a better job, or keeping your current job.

There’s also help of a spiritual nature. This assistance is perhaps the most important of all, and it’s also the kind that many people in recovery either discount or feel that they don’t need or deserve. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether your idea of a higher power is God or the power of the spirit, you need to embrace the healing power of asking for help from such an entity – or find the help within yourself. Use prayer, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, or just reflecting in the beauty and power of nature to connect with the power within you. If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, there are many books and articles on how to refresh your spirit and soul that you can read. Again, knowledge is out there. All you have to do is look for it.

Your Path is Unique

Cut yourself some slack. Remember that your journey of recovery, your path is unique. How recovery works for you will be quite different – although similar, perhaps, in some ways – than anyone else’s. You can be inspired by hearing about others’ journeys, but each of us travels our own path. Each of us finds what we need by trial and error, by learning from our mistakes, and by celebrating and expanding upon our successes in recovery.

Over time, say a few months to a year, recovery won’t seem so confusing. The cobwebs that clouded your mind in the beginning will be gone, replaced by sound strategies, a strong support network that you surround yourself with, and the satisfaction of a sense of self-accomplishment and self-confidence that you are better equipped now to handle life than ever before. How you make sense of recovery is to live it – day by day, from this day forward. Believe in you, in your ability to sort out and make the right decisions, and in your well-deserved right to a happy, productive, and fulfilling future in recovery. Will life be perfect? No, of course it won’t. But life – your life – will be the result of the effort you put into it, the dreams you have and the steps you take to achieve them, and the willingness and ability to give and receive love. Life in recovery can be joyous, full of discovery, and much more than just a second chance. Make this your reality.