Nothing changes if nothing changes. This statement pretty much sums up the intent to get into recovery and alter someone’s life for the better. Addiction releases unsubdued chaos that will not stop until someone decides that cessation of drugs and alcohol is the adjustment they need. A person who abuses substances will experience an abundance of consequences that are a direct result of drinking alcohol or using drugs. When a person gets in enough pain they will have to change or else they will continue to endure consequences, including the ultimate consequence–death.
Deciding that enough is enough can generate the willingness that someone needs to begin their journey in sobriety. Until someone can see the truth of their destruction caused by their addiction, they will not be willing to change. For recovery to prevail, using the negative past as a marker of what not to do can elicit positive growth. Consequences are not to be taken lightly because they can be the key to making the necessary changes that are life-changing and life-saving in your recovery.
Change Sets the Standard
Once an individual starts the ball rolling in their recovery, their desire to alter their behavior to prevent consequences will develop a newfound precedent for how they wish to be perceived. Therapy and the 12-Steps are the guidelines that will make the most significant transformation in a person’s recovery because of the spiritual principles that the methods are based on. Your quality of life will depend on the standards you set for yourself. To live up to your full potential, you are the only one who can set the bar higher to elevate your behaviors from the low bottom consequences. Tuning up your moral compass will lead you to higher ground so that you can live up to being the person you were meant to be. Adding recovery measures into your life will help you to improve your judgment and allow you to see how capable you really are.
Change Alters Attitude
Consequences can reveal the pain and suffering they caused a person by seeing how wonderful life can be through a new and improved attitude. Instead of flipping life the bird because nothing is going your way, all you have to do is change your mindset to one that goes with the flow. Life on life’s terms will continue to happen and how you react to the conditions you are facing is everything. Things could be much worse if you think back to all of the consequences you were facing. Now that life is running much smoother due to staying sober and participating in your recovery, you can praise life with a grateful heart.
Change Provides Positivity
When someone starts to alter the way they think into something more positive to avoid ongoing consequences, their mindsets should become ones of gratitude and service. Rather than scheming on how they will get their next high, they will turn their ideas to how they can stay sober or assist their community. Positive thoughts provide lower levels of distress, a more confident outlook, and boosts in mental health. Incorporating unmitigated thoughts about your recovery can change negative consequences into positive ones that can make a difference in your life. Choosing positivity means that you will watch the world around you change.
Change Solidifies Security
Although change is often perceived as terrifying and uncomfortable, making the necessary changes to refrain from causing more problems will actually make you safer. Abstinence from alcohol and drugs intertwined with recovery can halt drunk driving, stop you from waking up in strange places, or prevent overdosing from overshooting the mark. All of these consequences cause inner turmoil because of the disarray that inevitably ensues. Putting yourself in precarious situations can lead to homelessness, jail, frayed relationships, or worse, death. Changing from dangerous and troublesome circumstances to gain more stability can provide better opportunities and better decision-making.
Without consequences, many people would go on doing what they do to keep getting away with what they want. Learning how to stay sober to make better decisions in recovery can produce different outcomes. Staying out of trouble and not hurting others can start with the clarity that cessation of drugs and alcohol brings about. Once the mental fog lifts, a person in recovery can use their consequences to establish personal growth by discussing them in therapy and working through them with the 12-Steps.
The past can be the key to life and happiness for someone with an addiction to drugs and alcohol, and everyone else affected. Being able to look at the consequences as a way to a new life comes from realizing that the person’s moral code needs to be adjusted and then making an effort to do so. Instead of looking at consequences as something terrible, look at them to prevent others from having to go through the same thing and as a way to see strength from overcoming them in recovery.
Consequences may lead you to treatment from drug and alcohol addiction, but the results will establish the purpose for long-term recovery. Valiant Living is focused on creating a home-like environment where clients feel cared for, loved, and safe. That means surrounding them with the right people and helping them assess the best next steps. When you or a loved one is ready to accept cessation from drugs and alcohol, Valiant Living wants to be the place you choose to come to get your life back in order. Valiant fosters connection, encouraging clients to get connected to themselves, their peers, their families, and their higher power. With the power of recovery, clients are restored to full health and experience life-changing healing. Call us today, so we can get you started on your journey at (303) 952-5035.
