An addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, even food can make life a living nightmare. You might spend your day planning your next fix or manipulating people and events so you can get alone with your addiction. Life is filled with anxious thoughts, emotions and activities, all so you can numb the pain for a while. But addiction can take everything from you.
What if there was a way out of the pain that didn’t involve medicating the anger, fear, guilt or shame? What if sober living was a real possibility? Would you pursue it? The good news is that there is a way out of the cycle of addiction. But it will require honesty, courage and perseverance. Getting help for an addiction is a courageous step towards health and healing.
The first thing to do is admit that you are an addict. Admit that something, besides you, has control over your life and you are powerless to stop it. Then find someone who can take you by the hand and help you up out of the pit. Getting into drug treatment or alcohol addiction treatment is absolutely necessary to get sober and stay that way. There are drug treatment centers all over the country that can help. Some are out-patient centers, where you can go for daily monitoring, some are in-patient, where you’ll check in, like a hotel or hospital, and stay for anywhere from a week to a month or more, depending on the type of addiction, the length of time you’ve been addicted, whether you have a co-addiction, like depression or another mental disorder, whether you have insurance and how much you can afford.
Sober living is a choice only you can make, but you won’t be alone. There are others who can help. The counselors and doctors at an alcohol addiction treatment center can help you get off the bottle, heal the pain and uncover the person you were meant to be. After you are done with drug treatment or alcohol addiction treatment, you will move into a long-term program, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, where you can work through the twelve steps of recovery and find healing and wholeness while connecting to others who struggle with the same issues. The Program, as those in AA call it, is worked individually, with a mentor and with a community of caring individuals who have been where you are. They have found hope and can help you find it as well.