Benefiting from Support Groups

Many of us struggling with addiction have formed the very destructive and limiting belief that we need to recover alone. We isolate ourselves thinking that no one else can relate to us or understand our pain. We often have given up hope altogether and don’t believe we can be helped. When we isolate ourselves, we remove ourselves from the communities and resources that can in fact support us in our recovery. One of the best resources available to us are the many support groups with regular meetings we can attend and benefit from.

Support groups are comprised of other people living with similar addictions and experiencing similar struggles. When we join a support group, we can immediately feel less alone and less isolated. We can look around us and see just how prevalent addiction is. We see firsthand how it runs the entire spectrum of religion, ethnicity, background and socio-economic status. When we feel less isolated, we’re more likely to come out of our shell and share our story. This powerful experience helps us to conquer our fears of expressing ourselves. Our addictions no longer have our silence, avoidance and denial to feed on. We’ve allowed our pain to come into the light of our awareness. We start to develop courage and resilience. We learn that we are stronger than our addictions.

Being in community with other people is like holding up a mirror to ourselves and our lives. The people with whom we are in fellowship help us to measure our progress, track our efforts and take inventory of where we can improve. We learn so much not just from sharing our own experiences but from hearing the stories of the people around us. We absorb all their wisdom. We benefit from their learning experiences almost as if they were our own. We share of ourselves and learn things about ourselves we might never have been aware of had we not joined this community. We can become more mindful of the behaviors and thought patterns that contributed to our addictions. We benefit from the cumulative awareness and collective consciousness of a group of people all striving towards the same goal of sobriety.

Support groups can give us the encouragement and motivation we need. They can be our source of strength when we feel down, weak and defeated. In addition, we can benefit from a renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment when we feel we are of service to other people.

Enlightened Recovery is here to provide you the community, love and support we all need for a successful recovery. Call us today: (833) 801-LIVE.