Recovery Isn’t Easy, But It’s Worth the Effort

In the USA, everyone seems to want EVERYTHING to be EASY. We want what we want and we want it NOW! Recovery from any addiction is never easy, nor is it instantaneous. Recovery is a lifetime process of unlearning old dysfunctional patterns of thinking and acting and replacing them with new healthy ones.

It takes a lifetime of practice and daily effort. It takes conscious contact with a Higher Power. It takes great  self-awareness. And it takes the ability to always be willing to change for the better by setting proper boundaries and living the 12 Steps. It also requires that we accept help from others.

It always makes me sad when I encounter people who deep inside don’t believe they are worth the effort, or time it takes to learn to love themselves and turn their lives around for the better. Many people start Recovery programs, but few truly stick with them. Few choose self-growth. It’s just so much easier for some people to stay stuck in old dysfunctional patterns of behavior and blame everyone else for their unhappiness.

Recovery is not easy. It takes a lot of dedication. But being perpetually miserable isn’t easy either. It may take a lot of effort and energy to create happy lives for ourselves, but it takes just as much energy, maybe more, to stay stuck, unhappy and depressed, as well as stressed out.

So how would you rather invest your energy? Working toward wholeness and happiness, or being stuck and depressed?

For codependents, we also have to realize that we can’t save others, that some people in our lives will never want to change, and there’s nothing we can do but accept that fact. We may need to detach with love from some of these people to protect ourselves. And that’s OK. We can pray for them and love them from a distance, but we can’t rescue someone who would rather drown in their own self-loathing and misery.

The only person we can save is ourselves. It’s not easy, but it’s worth all the effort.