The First Step To Recovery From Addiction Is Called Resiolve

I personally know people whose lives were utterly destroyed by addiction and yet, after being clean and sober, sometimes for decades, they’re still able to look back at their days of drinking and/or using and remember primarily the good times. They remember when alcohol or drugs were the “friend” that took the edge off after a long day at work. The “friend” that made them feel better about themselves and made it easier to socialize. It was the “friend” that softened, or temporarily erased memories from the past that they weren’t comfortable thinking about. It was the “friend” that always made it seem like things would be better tomorrow. And the best part about this friend was that it was a problem-solver and it was pretty dependable, which is something we all value in a friend. It worked for us, and it worked perfectly just about every time. In the beginning, anyway.

But of course as this “friend” is doing this, it’s also stripping your life away, little by little, bit by bit. Having six or seven drinks, snorting a line of coke, or a pipe full of meth always makes your problems go away. But here's the catch - when you wake up the next morning, not only is your problem still there, while you were sleeping it gave birth to six new puppies. Sure, it went away - but when it came back, it came back bigger. But still, what we tend to remember the most, are the good things about this “friend” that's killing us. As one of our clients described this phenomenon, “it’s like being brutally raped or assaulted by someone, but the only thing that sticks in your mind is how nice their cologne was.” Such is the way of addiction.

So when you make the decision to enter recovery you must have resolve about this “good friend.” You must resolve that what started out as a solution to your problem (and it did) has now become the problem. You must resolve that at least at the present time, there’s no cure for this problem, it will always be inside you now, and all you can do is put it "under arrest" so to speak. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an incredible life, it just means that from the day you enter recovery, the number one priority in life becomes your recovery. That means it’s ahead of your spouse or partner, it’s ahead of your kids, it’s ahead of your mother, father, boss - everyone and everything.

Sure, there are those who feel you can learn to drink or drug again normally. Maybe you can, and there is a distinction between physical dependence and addiction. But at All Positive Options, we ourselves and the people we deal with fell victim to addiction, not the inability to drink or use drugs with discretion. For us, our recovery comes before everything and everyone, because that's the position our addiction enjoyed. It came before everything else and everyone else. So for us, recovery is what everything else is built on.

Now that might sound incredibly selfish, but ask yourself this - if you don’t have your recovery, if you can't learn to live without the enormous burden of addiction on your back, of what use are you to your spouse, your children, your mother, father, or boss? And the answer is, if you continue to drink or drug, you are of no use to anyone. Recovery must come first, it must be the first stone in your new foundation and you must resolve that nothing will come before it, because without it, nothing else will matter because it will be gone.

As people who are familiar with All Positive Options know, some of our clients are very accomplished and in some cases famous in the fields of acting, music, business and so on. And as someone in recovery myself, I can tell you that people in recovery really are different than “normal” people, and not just because many of them are famous or extremely accomplished.

You see, a very high percentage of people in recovery have a higher I.Q. than “normal” people. We’re usually far more creative, we’re usually funnier or more entertaining to be around, we’re way more sensitive, and we usually do everything in a much bigger way and of course, that included the way we drank or took drugs. And you may be thinking right now, "Well that's not me - I did poorly in school, or I never really achieved anything so great in life." Well, keep reading - you might find out why.

Basically, your average person in recovery is like a high-end car like a Porsche, except there's one problem - we have a bad fifth gear. As a result, we can outrun any other car almost without even trying, until of course, we use that “bad gear.” And for us, that "bad gear" is engaged anytime we use anything that artificially alters our mood. Unlike normal people, who can say, “This is perfect - I’m totally satisfied.” We tend to say, “This is perfect, and I want MORE perfect.”

So when you make the resolve to enter recovery, don’t think you’re joining a group of people who are “losers,” or “less thans.” Because if that’s what you think, you better explain that to the people on the list on the next page. For the most part, they've all accomplished great things in life and are extremely talented. And the only time they became a loser, or “less than” is when they were in denial of that “bad fifth gear” we just talked about. And with some of these people, denial of that “bad fifth gear” is what killed them. So if you're a person who has had issues with addiction, or are now in recovery from addiction, go to the next page and see a partial list of an incredible group that YOU belong to.