What is Recovery?

Recovery is a tough concept to get your head around when attempting to heal and overcome an addiction.  The question I get most is “I acted-out, am I still in recovery?”  (Acting-out in this sense means participating in the addictive behavior again.)  The answer is yes.  This is a brief introduction to RECOVERY, very brief.

You are not in recovery when you make a conscious decision to make no effort to discontinue your acting-out behavior.  Therefore you are not in recovery when you do not want to be.  Also, you cannot claim to be in recovery if you act-out, apologize, and repeat.  This is where your family, your community, or your spouse comes into play – they are your accountability group.

The accountability of the person in recovery and the accountability group are dually involved.  Both the person in recovery and the accountability group are responsible for their roles.  Here are a couple of examples of an accountability group not being responsible:  I am attempting to get sober, I start drinking and a person in my accountability group says, “he only drinks a beer here and there.”  This is not recovery.  I am attempting to stop viewing porn and I relapse and my spouse says “it was just that one time and it did not hurt anything.”  This is not recovery.

The appropriate response from the accountability partner in both of these examples would have been, “This is not acceptable, change is wanted and there are consequences.”

Most individuals struggling with an addiction, are enabled to continue their addiction because the community and family they are are part of do not hold them accountable and make excuses for them.  An addict cannot heal if their family, community or spouse are unwilling to provide consequences for acting out.

Recovery for the addict is this:  1) I always move forward, even when I stumble.  2) I am accountable for all my actions and I make no excuses and blame no one.   3) I accept all consequences for my actions.

You choose recovery, and you do not do it alone.