An Up Side

If there is an up side to Addiction ~ it is recovery

Recovery of health

mental and emotional

physical and spiritual

Recovery is ~ these human facets

each woven together creating a strong suit of chain mail

surrounding and supporting an individual while

picking up the shattered and scattered pieces of life

mending relationships that seemed past mending 

learning to let go of those relationships long past any mending

developing community with family and often new friends

building and rebuilding from the inside out.

Recovery is sometimes accompanied by relapse

renewing old feelings of shame, guilt and remorse

having a more solid foundation of changed

attitudes and behaviours

physical health and spirit.

Mistakes made are lessons learned

Trips and slips ~ signs that construction is still needed

Is recovery easy?

Habits of a life time compounded by substance affected learning and living die slow and painful deaths

Qualities hidden in the years of abuse of substance, person and relationship grow slowly as the soil of a life is weeded, watered and nurtured.

Is recovery found alone?

The lessons of recovery offered by friends, family and professionals

are merely supports throughout recovery.

Recovery is as personal and profound as active addiction has been.

“One must not forget that recovery is brought about not by the physician, but by the sick man himself.  He heals himself, by his own power, exactly as he walks by means of his own power, or eats, or thinks, breathes or sleeps."

~ Georg Groddeck