New Year’s Addiction Resolution

Most people think of resolutions at the beginning of the New Year. Our name – NewDay Counseling – is based on the concept of a new start, new life, new beginning, a new day. Addiction treatment is not something to put off, because it’s too easy to keep putting it off. The idea of a new day is that this day is the “new day” and it’s time to act. This is the day to make a decision. As the old saying goes, tomorrow never comes. All we have is today, right now.

It’s easy to say that we can deal with a problem like addiction without professional help, to minimize the consequences and rationalize why now is not a good time for treatment. Well, there’s Christmas shopping, parties to attend, and, besides, with the New Year  coming up that’ll be good time to make a new start — later, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year.

The problem with putting off addiction treatment is that it’s never a good time, because it’s something scary and unpleasant. Who wants to jump right into something that’s unpleasant? In reality, the only way to get into treatment is to just do it. Everything an addict puts before treatment and recovery is usually, eventually, lost. Addicts lose the family they claim to be number one, or they lose their job that’s so important they can’t take off from work to get addiction treatment– on and on.

The New Year’s addiction resolution doesn’t have to come later — it can start now. This day. Most of our clients in treatment talk about the relief of finally making the decision to deal with addiction and to take actions to achieve recovery. In order to get into recovery and stay in recovery, it requires commitment and action. When someone says right now is not a good time to take 8 weeks out of their life to attend treatment, I take them to a blank chalk board and put a little dot on it. I say “This board is your life going forward, and this dot is the eight weeks you’ll be treatment. It’s such a very small amount of time compared to the rest of a person’s life, but it can make such a huge difference.

Another thing people often say near the end of treatment is how fast the time went by — we have clients who say they aren’t ready to leave at the end of 8 weeks. We never know if something can be done or how it will turn out until we take the action. Happy Holidays! I wish everyone suffering from addiction finds their way to recovery — what a great present that will be — today is the day to begin.