Addiction and Recovery Management

The major difficulty with recovery from addiction is that addicts have created a slew of faulty conclusions that aren’t based in facts and reality. Recovery Management is, in large part, reexamining these conclusions and slowly accepting facts and reality. Addicts aren’t the only ones working off faulty premises or avoiding facts and reality, but for the addict this lack of clarity and truth can be deadly.

Those looking at the behavior of an active addict will likely see the destruction with no problem. The observer might say that the addict is insane because they keep doing the same things over and over and apparently not learning that the actions lead to the same consequences. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson likens this “insanity” to a jaywalker who continues to jaywalk and get tickets until he’s ruined his life. That would surely meet the definition of insane.

In the addict’s mind, though, the drug, be it alcohol, opioids, cocaine, Xanax, etc., is holding them together. In the addict’s mind life is out of control, painful and confusing without the drug. This is why most people who don’t understand addiction become frustrated with addicts — when it comes to their drug of choice, the addict is not dealing with facts and reality. The addict might be reasonable and reality based in other areas, like business or daily decision making on other issues, but when it comes to the drug on which they’re dependent, they are completely out of touch with reality, except for the private reality they’ve created in their addiction, which, to them, seems very real.

Long term recovery management entails complete re-evaluation of the addict’s relationship to the drug. This is where support groups come in — from my perspective the most powerful agent of recovery for the addict is the support they find from other recovering addicts. The understanding and the bond between recovering addicts is powerful and life changing, much like the bond developed among all people who share a survival experience from certain tragedies.

It’s not that friends and family members can’t provide powerful support, they can, but there are some things about addiction, the “insanity” of addiction and recovery from addiction that only another recovering addict will understand. All forms of support are vital, and recovery management is holistic — nutrition, intellectual pursuits, exercise, relationships, spiritual and so forth. Support in all these areas will enhance recovery, but paying attention to the ongoing, deep, re-evaluation of the relationship to the drug is primary.