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I’ve spent the last six years unlearning what I had been taught, and it’s been hard. I want to make it easier for other mothers. That’s how I found myself learning about harm reduction and starting to practice it with my own daughter. And she’s still here. I don’t love the phrase, “You can’t recover if you’re dead,” but it’s true. I’m for every path that helps anyone stay alive and get a little better. However, once you enter recovery and start working to overcome alcoholism, you can access a wide range of treatment services to help you heal each area of your life.
National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. (2015, July 24). Definition of Recovery Retrieved from # Does the treatment program provide as dignified and respectful an environment as would be found in other medical settings? Polcin, D. L., Korcha, R., Bond, J. & Galloway, G. (2010, December). What Did We Learn from Our Study on Sober Living Houses and Where Do We Go from Here? Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3057870/ Self-reflection: Also known as “Inventory,” or “Taking Inventory,” step 4 is where a person takes a moral inventory of themselves. This is a challenging and essential step to recovery. Moral inventory includes assessing where you’re at with the basics of self-care, including exercise and nutrition, the status and health of your relationships, finances, and career. The "Big Book" recommends making step 4 an ongoing step throughout recovery as things change.
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Davidson, L., White, W., Sells, D., Schmutte, T., O’Connell, M., Bellamy, C., & Rowe, M. (2010). Enabling or engaging? the role of recovery support services in addiction recovery. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 28(4), 391–416. Recovery-oriented policies have also supported diverse populations. For example, SAMHSA's Recovery Community Services Program made advancing recovery in diverse communities a central goal and helped support organizations serving a broad range of ethnic, racial, and sexual minority communities. Further, 12-step fellowships such as AA and NA have a long history of supporting meeting spaces that are specific to women; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) populations; young people; and other groups, including meetings that are conducted in other languages.
Many find in 12-step programs—Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotic Anonymous (NA) are among the best known—a caring, supportive community willing to pull each other through the temptations, the self-rebuke, and the hopelessness that especially mark the early stages of recovery. They also value having role models of recovery and someone to call on when the recovering self is an unsteady newborn. Whatever the stress relief that comes from being in a group, many others are not comfortable with the religiosity, the steady focus on the dangers of relapse rather than on growth, or the subscription to powerlessness of AA and NA. Data show that the programs are helpful for some but not for everyone. Addiction treatment is not one-size-fits-all.The first step of recovery is recognizing addiction exists and admitting change is necessary to overcome it. In most situations, a person cannot recover from addiction until they’re willing to commit to change. Recognizing addiction exists also means recognizing that recovery is possible. 2 Learn About Addiction National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2012, December). Principles of Effective Treatment. Retrieved from http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment-research-based-guide-third-edition/principles-effective-treatment Many people believe that they are powerless to change their own addictive behavior, and often it is a belief that keeps people addicted. The evidence shows that every day, people choose to recover from addiction on their own. One way or another, they learn and deploy a set of skills that help them get through the strong cravings and urges of the difficult early stages of recovery. Some of the most helpful strategies for dealing with cravings are summarized in the acronym DEADS. Al-Anon is a mutual aid group commonly sought by families dealing with substance use in a loved one. Like AA, Al-Anon is based on a 12-step philosophy 83 and provides support to concerned family members, affected significant others, and friends through a network of face-to-face and online meetings, whether or not their loved one seeks help and achieves remission or recovery. More than 80 percent of Al-Anon members are women. 84 The principal goal of Al-Anon is to foster emotional stability and “loving detachment” from the loved one rather than coaching members to “get their loved one into treatment or recovery.” Al-Anon includes Alateen, which focuses on the specific needs of adolescents affected by a parent's or other family member's substance use. Other research pinpoints the values of cognitive behavioral therapy for relapse prevention, as it helps people change negative thinking patterns and develop good coping skills. In addition, learning relaxation techniques can help those in recovery by reducing the tension that is often an immediate trigger of relapse, become comfortable with uncomfortable feelings, and release negative feelings that can trigger relapse.
Increasingly, RSS are being organized into a framework for infusing the entire health and social service system with recovery-related beliefs, values, and approaches. 34 This transformation has been described as: Having a physical tolerance for alcohol (i.e., needing to use more alcohol now than you did when you initially began using alcohol to experience the same effects) Young People in Recovery – “Our national leadership team creates and cultivates local community-led chapters through grassroots organizing and training. Chapters support young people in or seeking recovery by empowering them to obtain stable employment, secure suitable housing, and continue and complete their educations. Chapters also advocate on the local and state levels for better accessibility of these services and other effective recovery resources.” White Bison – “White Bison offers sobriety, recovery, addictions prevention, and wellness/Wellbriety learning resources to the Native American/Alaska Native community nationwide. Many non-Native people also use White Bison’s healing resource products, attend its learning circles, and volunteer their services.” Under all circumstances, recovery takes time because it is a process in which brain cells gradually recover the capacity to respond to natural sources of reward and restore control over the impulse to use. Another widely applied benchmark of recovery is the cessation of negative effects on oneself or any aspect of life. Many definitions of recovery include not only the return to personal health but participation in the roles and responsibilities of society.
Paths to Recovery
Acceptance: The key to Step 6 is acceptance—accepting character defects exactly as they are and becoming entirely willing to let them go.
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