Success in recovery is an outcome unique to each person. The process to achieve success is also different for different people. Understanding what your steps to success look like can help you climb toward recovery success.
Steps Toward Success
Although some common steps to success can help everyone, you will likely need to be specific about your situation so that you can determine what will work best for you. To do this, you will likely need to account for your personality, strengths, weaknesses, and situations such as any co-occurring disorders.
There are common pathways to follow through recovery. These include awareness of the addiction, detox, experimentation with treatment options, implementation of these practices, transition back into the outside world, and sobriety maintenance. Most people in recovery go through these steps, but your treatment team will likely personalize your treatment.
For example, some individuals find they need residential care, while others feel confident in a partial hospitalization program. Determining this is often part of the experimental stage. As you continue to experiment with different recovery techniques, you can establish the best practices to help you overcome your addiction and reach a state of sobriety.
Once you reach the maintenance stage, you are not necessarily in the clear. Long-term sobriety maintenance will continue throughout your life as you use the skills you gained in treatment. You may encounter times of relapse and regression, and you may need to reassess your standing in recovery. Don’t lose motivation when these difficulties arise. Instead, adjust your exit plan and remind yourself of the positive aspects of remaining sober.
The Climb
Reaching success requires you to create a variety of goals working up to an ultimate long-term goal. The steps that need to be achieved to accomplish this ultimate goal can seem overwhelming. It can feel impossible to view yourself in a state of success when it requires so much work to get to that stage. Altering your viewpoints on these goals can help you stay motivated through the process.
Use rock climbing as an example. As you’re standing at the bottom of the wall, you likely feel incapable of getting to the top. The only way to complete this obstacle is to take it one step at a time. Think of yourself strapped into a harness, climbing the wall that seems beyond your abilities. While you have the safety of the rope, there is still a level of risk and fear involved in completing the climb, promoting feelings of anxiety. As you begin to climb, you may fall, need some breaks, and struggle to work your way up the wall.
You may stop in the middle and look down, bringing a sense of fear of how high up you are. This fear may cause you to mess up your next move, potentially setting you a few steps back in completing the climb. After multiple attempts, you reach the top of the climb. The feeling of satisfaction is overwhelming. While the climb may have been greatly frustrating, the rewarding satisfaction was worth all the work.
Addiction recovery can be viewed in a very similar way. As you begin recovery, you feel incapable of completing everything that is to come. You begin, taking things one step at a time. As you begin making progress, you may look back upon your previous state and fear encountering a relapse. You may experience small failures throughout your journey, but the end reward will be worth the effort.
Implementing This Mindset
A mindset of taking the climb one step at a time can be very beneficial for many individuals. However, it is not always easy to implement.
Physical Activities
One way to reinforce this mindset is to engage in physical activities such as climbing or hiking. These kinds of physical activities can remind you of this powerful image and prove that you have what it takes. If you have not tried climbing, hiking, or a similar physical activity, this may be an opportunity to gain a new enjoyable hobby to implement into your sober lifestyle.
Other Hobbies and Challenges
Not everyone can hike or climb, however. Other people may simply not find these activities engaging. Fortunately, there are many ways you can implement this mindset in your recovery. Think of any challenge you have faced in the past. How did you handle it? Did you try to accomplish everything in one go, or did you take it step by step?
When completing homework, you have to do one problem at a time to complete the assignment. You may wish to answer everything at once; however, that is impossible. Most achievements require patience. Keep this in mind as you work through recovery to help you stay motivated. Other long-term accomplishments such as writing a book or improving at a hobby can reinforce this lesson. Even activities like cleaning your room can show you what progress you can make over time by focusing on fixing one detail at a time.
Addiction Recovery
As you continue through your recovery journey and sobriety maintenance, think of your goals in small increments. Avoid overwhelming yourself with all the work that is ahead of you and focus on the aspects you can work on right now. As you continue to do this, you will eventually look back in awe at the progress you have made.
Recovery is a journey full of ups and downs. The process is comparable to the journey of rock climbing or hiking. Although you will likely struggle along the way, the satisfaction and views from the top are well worth all the hardships that were encountered. As you work your way through recovery, keeping this mindset can be very beneficial in maintaining your levels of motivation. When you encounter hardships, it can be easy to lose sight of the reward at the end of the journey and give up. Sticking with your goals, taking them one at a time, and continuing the climb to success will allow you to feel the satisfaction of making progress in recovery. This mindset can be reinforced by physical and non-physical activities that require focus and patience. To learn more about climbing to success in recovery, reach out to Dream Recovery at (949) 732-1960.
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