The answer is yes. The answer is no. Many report feeling an instantaneous sense of relief when they pick up the phone and make the call for help. Getting on the plane, arriving at the treatment center, walking in the doors, and getting settled all feel like divine interventions, guaranteeing a better life ahead. Surrender is a powerful tool in recovery and doesn’t just happen in the beginning. Throughout your entire life you are going to have opportunities to surrender. By definition, surrender means to cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority. When people don’t surrender to recovery they do not feel the relief that recovery provides. Continuing to fight in recovery is fighting the wrong opponent or enemy. Submitting to the authority of recovery means giving into the simple fact that drinking and using is no longer the answer. Abstinence is the new authority and in order to recover, it has to be obeyed. This is a fight many do not give up.
Yet, most don’t realize, when they fight recovery, they truly fight themselves. Addiction and alcoholism are often developed as coping mechanisms to deal with shame and guilt. Where that shame and guilt comes from is different for each person. Some may have experienced it through trauma and abuse in their pasts. Others develop it through their chemical dependency upon drugs and alcohol. Shame can come from untreated mental health disorders, eating disorders, and other sources. When they turn to drugs and alcohol, they turn away from themselves. Without any healthy tools for reconciling with who they are and using practical applications of techniques to change problematic behaviors, they become lost. For most people, it doesn’t get better until they decide to start clearing away the debris and start finding themselves again. In order to start the search, they have to give up the fight.
Every single day in recovery, when you are committed to surrendering to a new way of life, it gets a little bit better. Doing the work of making significant changes to your life is hard, there’s not doubt it about. No doubt about this, either: it’s worth it. More importantly, you’re worth it.
If you’re ready to do the work, the work is ready to be done by you. Healing is waiting. Change is possible. It’s going to get better.
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Call Avalon Malibu today for information on our residential treatment programs providing excellence in care for mind, body, and spirit. Our trusted treatment programs provide total healing and transformation for clients with primary mental health disorders as well as primary substance use disorders. For more information, call 1 (888) 958-7511 today.
