When we’re facing recovery, there are many things we’re afraid of. We fear abstaining from our drug of choice. We fear withdrawal. Why do so many of us fear getting help? When it could help us succeed in our recovery, why are we so resistant to seeking out support?
Many of us have been conditioned to think that needing help is a sign of weakness. We desperately want to save face, especially when we’ve already accrued so much guilt and regret throughout the course of our addictions. We’re embarrassed that we’ve reached this point. We may have already tried to recover on our own and are relapsing, and the bitter disappointment of it makes us feel sad and ashamed. We might be prideful and not want anyone to know we have a problem. We may be afraid of being judged, and even though treatment is meant to be a safe space, we’re so fearful of this judgment that we resist considering getting help altogether.
When treatment is effective, it can teach us new things about ourselves, push us out of our comfort zones and cause us to grow and expand. Treatment forces us to face ourselves, without the crutch of drugs, without our pride to hide behind. It can break us down, which can be difficult but which actually allows us to start again and rebuild ourselves. All of these things can be scary, especially when we’ve been living so long numbing our fears with drugs. We may not be used to confronting our fears. Treatment pushes us to face our fears, and even though we’ll be supported the whole way, the fear itself can be paralyzing and can make us avoid treatment at all costs.
We also fear treatment because we fear what comes after. We know that when we leave treatment, we’ll be on our own again. We’ll have to contend with temptation, with addictive urges and compulsions. We’ll have to return to our homes and communities where addiction might be common and the normal way of life. We’ll have to deal with the relationships that were challenging for us before treatment, that may have contributed to our addictive behaviors and patterns. We might face pressure from people to use, people who themselves aren’t in recovery. Treatment can be scary, but sometimes what scares us most is the difficulty of life after treatment.
There comes a point when we’re ready to make the changes we need to make in our lives in order to get better. We decide we have to face our fear, and once we do, we prove to ourselves that we’re actually strong enough to transcend it.
We’re here to help you get back the life you love. Call Riverside Recovery today for more information: (800) 871-5440.