What Can Speed Up My Recovery?

The road to recovery is long and often frustrating. Addicts often have high expectations for themselves and want to rush headlong into stages they’re not yet ready for. To make steady, consistent progress, however, there are ways to boost yourself and see progress that in the long run will put you ahead.

Have a Strong Support System

There is nothing worse than being alone when you are an addict. The more you isolate yourself, the more you can only turn to your addiction for relief—but that fact also makes the opposite just as true. Surrounding yourself with strong, encouraging people, especially in a Christian faith community, can lend you strength even when you’re feeling the lowest. They can also act as an accountability system so that you can measure and make real progress instead of justifying yourself right back into addiction.

Understand What Led to Your Addiction

Like any habit, your addiction came from somewhere, but unlike less destructive patterns of behavior, addiction often has a stark inciting incident. Identifying what that was for you can give you better insight moving forward on your journey. There are a variety of factors that can affect your recovery, but knowledge of how it works and why can give you a foundation to stand on when making plans on how to overcome it, personalizing that plan to you and your history with the addiction. And, if this proves to be a hard step, it’s likely one of the most important things you can do to overcome the behaviors that fuel your addiction.

Make Realistic Goals

Through all of this, don’t bite off more than you can chew. You’re here because you want to recover—that’s already an amazing step. But raising your expectations through the roof will only lead to disappointment and heartache. To truly boost your recovery, take the time to consider where you’re at right at this moment, and set realistic goals that you will actually follow through on. If that requires getting intervention, go to someone you can trust to help, but if you are able to set your goals independently, make sure to still tell a trusted person in your family or community.

There’s no simple cure to something that has forever changed how you think. But recovery is very much attainable if you choose to be proactive about it and push yourself out of isolation. Look at your life, your goals, and the people around you, and revolve your recovery around that.

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