Treatment for substance use is often referred to as giving ourselves a “second chance” at life, or a “new beginning.” However, choosing to recover from substance use is so much more than just a second chance. This is an opportunity to take everything that we have learned from our lives to date and, like forging steel, create a life that is even stronger and more powerful than before.
Making a Weakness a Strength
Most of us just want to forget our past. However, while memories steeped in shame and regret are best left behind, we should try to remember the things that we learned from our substance use. Forgetting the past completely would mean we could leave ourselves wide open to relapse and repeat those things we regret.
Recovery is about taking something we perceive as a weakness and finding the strength to make wholesale changes in our lives. If we have endured the fires of substance use, we deserve the opportunity to use those flames to forge us, not destroy us. We can learn from our past and gain strength from it to build a stronger future.
Learn from the Past
While many of our memories of substance use may be painful, it is important to remember why we started using substances and the things that triggered us to continue using them. We can let go of shame and remorse and all of the things that are not helping us. However, we should remember what fueled those events, because that is where change begins.
We cannot change our past, but we can change our course. Looking at whatever pain, loss, trauma, or whatever made us start using substances helps us to know how to heal and reminds us to make different choices going forward.
Changing the Present
Now is the time to change the direction of our life. There is no time like the present to choose to treat our substance use, to heal from our past, and start our new future. Whether this is the first time we have actually considered seeking treatment or the hundredth time, today is the best day to leave the path of substance use and change our present choices.
Entering the recovery path means that we are willing to take what we have learned and move forward by discontinuing our substance use and making new choices for our mental, physical, and emotional well-being. We are choosing to change old habits, make new habits, and we are willing to courageously step into a whole new life.
Change can be very difficult. This path is not a smooth journey, there will be bumps in the road ahead. We may need to change our friends, our jobs, our living arrangements, and maybe even make changes with how we interact with family members. We can change our diet and exercise habits, what we do in our leisure time, and more. By keeping our eyes firmly on our future, we can stay strong in all of the changes we are making and overcome all of the hurdles in our path. Because we are building on what we have learned and drawing strength from our ability to change our here and now, we can create an all-new future for ourselves.
Building the Future
Our future is more than just stopping our substance use. Our future is making daily choices to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. We can gain new interpersonal skills so that our relationships are improved at home, at work, and in our friendships. We can gain self-confidence and repair our self-esteem. We can learn to manage stress and better regulate our emotions to function better in all areas of our lives.
Our future is more than just a life without substance. It is a life that we are hand-carving and forging for ourselves every day from this point forward. Our future is bright because we have chosen a different path than the one we are on, and we are engaging in daily self-care and other practices to make sure that we stay on this path. We can build our future to be what we want it to be when we leave substances in the past and forge a brave new tomorrow.
Forged Strength
What many perceive as a weakness is actually raw strength. We can take our past and draw the learning experiences from it and discard the excess baggage. As we take those experiences, we can learn from them. We can learn to listen to ourselves, to our pain and what it has been trying to tell us, and in listening, we become stronger.
By listening to our pain, we empower ourselves to make new choices. Those new choices include healing our pain instead of trying to numb it. As we honor our minds, bodies, and emotions, we forge a strength inside of us. This allows us to do more, to be more, and to feel more. We can choose a life that is more than just a second chance. We can be as strong as steel and build a future of our choosing.
If you want to make a life for yourself that is more than just a second chance, call Rancho Milagro Recovery at (951) 526-4582 today. Life is worth learning from your past, creating an all-new present, and forging a strong future just for you.