How you Can Stop Drinking and Start Living Recovery

Many people get mixed up about recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, because they think it is all about elminating the chemicals. They think that the primary focus is on eliminating drug use and then on avoiding all of those triggers and urges that might pop up in our lives that might make us relapse.

If recovery were truly this simple then we would probably see much higher success rates. Unfortunately we do not, because achieving good results in recovery takes an awful lot of effort.

On of the harder truths to swallow in early recovery is the intense level of effort needed to stay clean at first. If you want to achieve a successful life of sobriety then you have to put forth a huge initial effort. Most people learn as they go through life that putting forth a modest effort will give them modest results, but this is not the case with addiction. If you approach early sobriety with anything less than a 100 percent effort, you are going to relapse.

This can be somewhat tricky because as newcomers in early recovery we will usually seek guidance from oldtimers in the program who have been around for a while and try to copy their strategies. This won't work out well for someone new in recovery and it will probably make them go back to using. If your sponsor has multiple years in the program and you try to imitate him and his recovery strategy then you're likely to end up relapsing. Why? Because as we remain clean in recovery we start changing and growing in different ways. What got us clean and sober will not keep us clean and sober….we have to keep changing as we go along. If we want to understand how to stop drinking then we need to realize that we will change as we progress in recovery.

Not only that, but the amount of up-front effort you need as a newcomer to recovery is just huge. Don't imagine that you can find some magic loophole to get to the serenity and peace that your sponsor has. That serenity was earned. It is not a magic gift that you can claim without putting in the footwork.