Stages in Addiction Recovery

When I first started working in addiction treatment, there was more of an emphasis on recovery or failure, but those of us who continued in the field for years recognized stages in addiction recovery going from active addiction to long term recovery.

When addicts are confronted with reality and the idea of treatment is first addressed, the addicted person has no interest in quitting. The person might grudgingly admit they’re drinking too much alcohol or doing too many drugs at times, and they might make a half-hearted promise to keep an eye on it and slow down a bit, but they don’t have any intentions of stopping. If someone is convinced to receive counseling at this point, education is effective in getting the person to begin thinking about the possibility that a problem with alcohol or some other drug might exist. Why does your family think you have a problem? Why do you have legal problems associated with drugs? Deep down the person probably has a fear that a problem exists but can’t imagine not drinking or not using some other drug.

This beginning stage transitions into the next stage where the person starts having doubts, begins considering the possibility that a problem exists, begins questioning the denial and wondering if others are right. At this stage, if the person is in treatment, the therapist will start looking at the option of abstinence from alcohol and other drugs and what this might be like — what it would entail, how the person would go about beginning to quit. At this stage the person’s seriously considering living without alcohol or some other drug.

The next stage is imagining the process of long term recovery — perhaps the person is open to learning about AA, even meeting someone who goes to AA. The person imagines what can be done to replace the alcohol or drug use. At this stage there’s the introduction of a plan of action to accomplish goals. There’s no need to insist on the idea that a person must quit forever — forever is overwhelming. At this one it’s just taking one day at a time and seeing how things go.

When the action stage arrives, recovery has advanced. The person starts going to AA, starts participating in family therapy, starts letting others know about the changes, starts healing some of the wounds from the past, starts dealing with emotional pain caused by behavior when under the influence of alcohol or some other drug. At this stage the recovering person should receive positive encouragement for the progress made. It’s important that a Big Picture is drawn and referred to all along the way. The recovering person will transition from fighting to stay away from the alcohol or other drugs to a sensation of being pulled toward something positive, purposeful, good and lasting. As progress is made in recovery, the person wants more growth and change and takes more actions to achieve their goals. Maybe the person goes back to school, or builds the family relationships they’ve wanted but couldn’t achieve while drinking, or they try for the promotion at work they were afraid to try for while actively using drugs.

Then the person maintains the progress and works toward steady, long term growth, health and well-being. This is called Recovery Management and is vital to long term recovery. Maybe the person in recovery is solid in AA or some other support group — they let their physician know about their recovery so that a nutrition and exercise program can be developed and their medication is managed if any is necessary. The recovering person gets to a point where there’s no compulsion to drink alcohol or use some other drug but understands that recovery is contingent on mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. There might be a relapse, but there doesn’t have to be a relapse. If a person relapses, they can get back into their recovery program and learn from what caused the relapse. The best path is relapse prevention, and this is what recovery is about — relapse prevention, healthy relationships. support and personal growth. The saddest statement we can make is that we don’t have what it takes internally to thoroughly enjoy life and other people without a mood-altering drug in our body — we do have internally what it takes — we just have to find it and protect it and nurture it.