(888) 224-7312
Addiction has the power to take over a person’s life for a very long time. It does not have to ruin it if a person wants to take an opportunity to attend treatment.
They may have to go a few times for it to ‘stick.’ Maybe they did not attend one that made sense to them and they did not get help for mental health issues or underlying trauma.
Whatever the reasons, resiliency is key to recovery. Building ‘Teflon skin’ to the issues in life that come along is going to help stay focused on recovery for the long haul. Find out why resiliency is so important, hard to do, and yet available at everyone’s fingertips.
How Resiliency Works
Resiliency is a taught experience, not something people innately know how to do well. Bouncing back from adversity, feeling like conquerers when things are tough, these are all things that come from learning experiences.
It might be a failure that teaches resilience, but parents and family also help teach these skills. Resilient people have a certain amount of strength that helps them accomplish things and helps them accept a certain reality.
Then, people have to believe life has meaning in the face of all the adversity and they improvise their lives to move around the roadblocks to freedom. When people see those they love not fighting back against sources of difficulty and, instead, struggle to move forward, this might build a sense of ‘learned helplessness.’
This may also happen to people who are enabled too much, as with addiction, and when this occurs, they have to ‘relearn’ how to be more resilient.
Addiction Recovery and Resiliency
Resiliency allows people to regroup and move forward. Even if people use substances that harm their bodies and minds, they have to know at some point there is still hope.
While surprises can lead to stress, they do not have to result in returning to using them if they have emotional wellness tools. The right tools mean everything when coping with recovery.
To cope with growing forward in recovery, it helps to learn from the past. Look at that as the best teacher life has to offer.
Use positive-focused thinking to review future behaviors. Don’t forget all the positive things people experienced.
Accept for the moment that change is inevitable and it can be for the better. It may not feel that way but it is going to help to be in recovery. Resiliency is about letting go and accepting things as they come along, rather than fighting them all the way.
Finding Support
Community is a huge part of building resilience in recovery. The long journey of recovery is not walked without people in front, alongside, and in the back of people to help carry them along.
There are stumbling blocks on the road for everyone. Nobody does it alone, nor should they. To travel this road alone feels too deep a burden to bear.
Community groups, activities, hobbies, and lifelines are important. Be sure to reach out to those who struggle and ask how they are doing.
Ask them to check-in and do the same. See how it impacts a person’s life to really see them, listen well, and want to know how they are doing.
Resilience and Healing Power of Help
Help is available for people who reach out for it. That doesn’t mean those who don’t reach out don’t have resilience, but they may not have tapped into it just yet.
They may feel down, depressed, anxious, frustrated, or even just worn out. That is the best time to open up and ask what is going on and if this is the way life is meant to be.
It is not meant to be this way forever. It is meant to be lived more fully, attentive to all the ways people struggle, and the way people need one another.
Resiliency and healing need to take place where people can find hope in the midst of tragedy and supportive treatment programs offer this for some people.
Family Support
Working with a treatment program offers a chance to work with the family of origin on past issues. This means talking about addiction, the origins of it, family histories of addictive behaviors, negative thought patterns or attitudes that keep people stuck and other issues at play.
Family support strategies need to include finding hope and healing with the family of origin so old patterns don’t continue. There is a chance to find help and support with the right people to guide everyone on the path together.
Family therapy, group work, and individual work for each family member can be crucial to working towards resiliency together. When it doesn’t work, keep working on it as an individual.
Sometimes family takes longer to adjust to new normals but maybe they never will. Accept that and move forward.
Don’t be afraid to let go of toxic people and find a new way of living healthy in recovery. Recovery is not about one person but it is for that one person to find their way forward.
Even if that means leaving some people behind to get ahead. Do it because it builds those resilience muscles and, maybe someday, they’ll just fall in line behind.
Forge is a place to come and recover your life from addiction. We help you reimagine what is possible and create the life you’ve been dreaming of.
Call us today: 1-888-224-7312
