Do you know The Most Overlooked Aspect of Recovery? Insight!

If you’ve ever been to or researched drug treatment recovery, you likely know quite a bit about how recovery works. Countless drug rehabs tout their state of the art detoxification facilities, their comfortable beds, and beautiful views. Nearly all rehab facilities boast one-on-one hours with licensed counselors who are well versed in addiction. Some claim support lies in art therapy where you can reinvigorate your creative side; others provide equine therapy for getting hands on with the physical world. With so many rehabs offering so many great choices, how do you know which one will be the one that will work best for you?

Every program from the 12-steps of AA to the most organic holistic program out there knows that the real secret to lasting, sustainable recovery is having the insight that completely changes the way you look at the substance you’ve been using. In fact, that is what the counseling hours and all the steps are ultimately pointing to, that awareness that everyone around you already knows—that you are not your addiction, that it doesn’t define you, and that it no longer has to control your life.

Some describe “insights” as simply a “new idea about something” and while that may fulfill the technical definition of the word, its use, particularly in the realm of recovery, demands more. You may wake up one morning and realize that if you double tap the arrow on your iPhone, it acts as a caps lock, and that’s a fun discovery. You may realize the benefits of yoga or meditation and it feels like a light bulb has turned on. You may even have what seems like a deep insight about your relationship or some event from your past that is beneficial or even cathartic.

But the big insight that is most often overlooked, the one that makes the biggest impact, and maybe even the only one that matters when it comes to real recovery is this: understanding that you are not your addiction.

I don’t mean reading that sentence and nodding along, and I don’t mean chanting it to yourself in the mirror or having to remind yourself that it’s true. I mean understanding that it is true in the same way you understand gravity to be true even if you aren’t thinking about Newton—it never fails, never fades away. It just IS.

You are not your addiction, or your past, or anything else that you’ve ever labeled yourself. Using drugs or alcohol to cover up, escape, cut loose or feel differently has only ever been something that you’ve done, something that along the way became a habit like tying your shoes. Having the incredible awareness that you aren’t your addiction that you no longer have to be a slave to its demands is akin to the beautiful insight that Helen Keller had the first time she understood she could communicate.

Helen Keller recalls her experience at the well with her teacher:

"As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away…"

The insight of true recovery is much the same. It’s an awakening of something forgotten from the time you were a child that you were whole and well and can always be so. Remembering your true nature can unlock unlimited mental health and allow you to feel much like Helen did at the well: light, free, full of hope, and understanding that whatever barriers you may encounter in the future, they can be met and overcome.

Don’t you deserve the kind of life-changing insights that Helen had?

Gulf Breeze Recovery is committed to remember that true insights can be the key to miracles.