I spent some time on the phone last night with someone wrangling with an addiction.  They knew in their  heart their life wasn't working.  They knew the road they were on was totally unhealthy and would probably lead to their death.  They had tried many things in the quest to health.  While there was some short term success, ultimately nothing had worked for very long.

I presented something different that they had never tried before.  The risks were low.  From a research and evidence prospective there was a better than 50% chance of long term permanent change, and a return to health.  The client had a great deal of resistance to trying. 

What was the reason?  Because they had tried so many times and failed, they just didn't want to get their hopes up again.  Even though they were truly unhappy in the present space in their life, they had come to at least a grudging acceptance of their lot in life.  They just couldn't believe one more time, that they might change their life.

I know many of the clients we see have tried and tried to change their life in the past.  They may feel and may actually feel they have the right to stop trying.  To go back and be willing to fail again requires courage.  It is not any fun to publicly and more importantly privately say you are going to do something and not succeed.  One way to find this courage is to get out of yourself.  Think of a child, friend, parent, spouse, or other significant person in your life.  If they were facing your problem, and facing pain, poor health and ultimately death, what would you say tho them?  Would you say it was O.K. for them to just quit?  How would you coach your best friend to find the strength to try again?

Once you have the courage, look for direction.  There is no one path to sobriety.  Just because it worked for someone else does not mean it is the ONLY path, or is THE path for you.  If you genuinely tried and it didn't work, look at the lessons you learned and look for a different route.  Courage and a NEW direction may make all the difference.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 7:29 am and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.