The Road to Good Life Recovery

The Road to Good Life Recovery:

When I got sober, I figured all I had to do was stop drinking and drugging, avoid the people and places that got me in trouble and everything would be fine. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s done.”

Ha! I was wrong. I had no idea that I had to learn to think, feel, and act differently if I wanted to have a life free from addictive functioning and full of joy.

Over three decades later, I understand through my own experience, and from helping hundreds of others, that addiction affects every aspect of our lives, our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. That’s why we can’t ‘just stop.’ As the saying goes, ‘If you sober up a drunken horse thief, you still have a horse thief.’

If we want to attain long-term contented sobriety, there is so much more we must do.

That’s why I want to share this simple fact with you: every one of us faces a fork in the road once we get sober.

That means that there are really only two roads in sobriety. The first road is a dead end and the other takes us as far as we can go. If you are a professional in recovery who has settled for the first road, this is what you may be experiencing.

The Dead End Road in recovery is where you keep spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

Ask yourself if you experience any of the following:

Feel overwhelmed with everyday life
Struggle to keep producing at work AND nurture your recovery
Know your loved ones are tired of your excuses
Are lonely, but won’t ask for help
Have emotional outbursts or feel nothing at all
Question your decision to stop your addiction – or worse,
Have thought about relapse

It’s easy to step onto this road.

You give up your drug of choice and then get busy living your life, attempting to make up for the years of bad behaviour that have hurt both you and those you love the most. You believe you are now doing the right thing: and those around you ought to appreciate you for it.

You may attend some recovery meetings, go to church, or practice a few recovery strategies at first, but those are inconsistent at best or wane or fall off entirely, at worst. They are not enough to create meaningful and lasting change.

Before you know it, you have slid into compulsively working, exercising, eating, shopping, sexting, gambling, gaming, or any other excessive behaviour. Without ever meaning to, you have slid back to being obsessive and compulsive, trying desperately to feel ok.

“I can do this (on my own),” remains a core belief.

In a moment of honesty and exhaustion though, you know that things are out of control. You are restless and irritable. Your suffering is on display. Your family is suffering too. Your partner feels abandoned. Your kids are desperate for more quality time with you.

The fact is this: Your focus is misplaced. Your life is totally off balance.

Whatever meaning you might glean from work is undermined by the enormous price you are paying emotionally, mentally, and relationally. You have not taken the time to get to know yourself – who you are as a sober person and how you aspire to be in the world. You have not invested the time and effort needed to learn what it takes to have emotional sobriety.

Worst case scenario: you pick up again and start spinning even further out of control.

Best case scenario: you stay ‘dry’ but you are isolated from others in recovery, don’t know yourself, and resentment and self-pity build day by day.

Some of what you might be experiencing includes:

You have quit your drug of choice and run on the belief that you have your addiction beat and you can go it alone
You notice that you are getting compulsive or obsessive in other areas of your life
Your relationships are non-existent or on the verge of disaster.

[You can download the entire assessment tool checklist HERE.]

Obviously, spinning your wheels and going nowhere is not what life in recovery is intended to be.

I believe that sobriety is the greatest gift anyone suffering from addiction can ever hope for.

So, challenge yourself to think of what more is waiting for you:

Are you interested in learning more about who you really are, free from addictive behaviors?
Do you want meaningful connections with family, friends, and colleagues?
Do you care to find your true passion and turn that into a beautiful life?
Are you willing to admit that recovery is best done alongside others?

In my next email, I will explain where the alternate road in recovery, road #2 leads us.

It’s impossible to do quality recovery alone, but it is something we can master together.

The Path to Good Life Recovery:

In my last email, I talked about how as entrepreneurs and professionals in recovery, there are just two roads in recovery that are available to us.

I elaborated on how easy it is to get stuck on the dead-end road that goes nowhere, spinning our wheels – sober but not serene.

In fact, it happened to me.

I know firsthand how easy it is to slip onto the path of misery in sobriety. I was about 4 years sober when I stopped taking my recovery seriously and was giving it minimal effort. I had landed a prestigious position and threw all my time and energy into ‘proving’ my worth through my work.

My ego took over. I slowly began to eliminate the routines and strategies that kept me on track in my recovery. I forgot what I had learned – that my addiction affects every part of me – my body, mind, heart, and soul – no matter how long it’s been since my last high. If I don’t stay focussed on investing in my recovery, a little bit every day, it will eventually overtake my life once again.

While on this dead-end road, I wasn’t talking to anyone in recovery.

I wasn’t accountable for my own self-absorbed behavior or taking the initiative to apologize for any harm I had caused others.

I spent very little time in prayer and meditation – so I had little conscious contact with the Divine Will that brings a sense of peace and calm to my life and keeps me striving to be my best self.

Instead, I was running completely on self-will. I slipped back into chronic negativity. I was bossy, entitled and complained when I didn’t get my way. I wasn’t treating the people who worked for me (or anyone else for that matter) with respect and kindness.

I started smoking cigarettes again, trading one destructive habit for another.

The problem was this: I couldn’t see it. I thought I was “just fine.”

That’s because a sick mind can’t recognize a sick mind.

Albert Einstein said it best:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

And that’s why we need each other.

I got sicker and sicker in self, to the point that one day my thought was, “Sue, you could have a drink again. You weren’t really that bad. You were just making too big a deal of it all.”

Little did I know, but I was a hairbreadth away from picking up again, and I doubt if I would be here to write this today, had I not been rescued from myself.

Because for those of you who don’t know me, I was that bad! I was a heroin addict, a cocaine addict, a pill addict, a pot addict, and an outrageous alcoholic.

If you can relate to any of this, let me assure you there is a way out.

It’s not the easier, softer way. Or the most comfortable. Because it demands that we take actions to promote our emotional sobriety.

But when you make that decision – at the fork in the road – and go towards emotional recovery, rather than ‘just stopping’ you have a chance to live your best sober life.

On road #2, you will:

Understand and practice new habits and rituals that support and sustain inner peace and happiness.
Go on to have a fulfilling career without sacrificing time with family, friends or your recovery.
Learn to live with a permeating sense of gratitude rather than ruminating on your past hurts, resentments and fears.
Think less of your own problems and focus instead on the contributions you can make that make the world a better place.
Discover what your true passion in life is and how to use your gifts and talents to live a life that has balance and purpose.
Be the change you want to see in the world.

I call this road the Highway to Happiness. This is exactly the road I teach and advocate for. It’s also the way I live my life.

I was given a second chance in recovery and shown what it was that I had to do in order to get well and stay well. I had to stop playing God, for one thing. I needed to let others get to know me and take an interest in the well-being of others. I had to look at my own emotional shortcomings, my unresolved trauma, my lifelong resentments and be willing to do something about it all. I needed to find a Power greater than myself that I can learn to believe in and relate to.

Once I had turned in this direction and begun to accelerate down this highway, happiness was to follow. It may not happen overnight, but I guarantee you, if you engage in the program you will find the best life sobriety has to offer you.

I’d like to show you how this transformation is totally possible for you too.