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Owning Your Choices In Recovery

In his book The Light in the Heart, author Roy T. Bennett talks a lot about choices. The human mind makes about 35,000 conscious choices and decisions each day. How many of them do we actually take time to consider? Despite our immense power as decision makers, we often give our power away when it comes to our choices. It might seem strange to ponder. Don’t we make our choices for ourselves? If we were to take the time to analyze each of our choices we would probably find a lot more inauthenticity than we were expecting. So often do we make a choice because of someone else, for someone else, or in spite of someone else. Each time we make a decision that goes against the authentic will of who we are we leave a little scar in our minds. Like giving ourselves a burn, we are left in pain. Though it feels easier to make choices that keep us safe as we assume other would want us to act this way, it actually harms us. We’re left with shame, guilt, and a damaged sense of self-esteem.

“Every choice comes with a consequence,” Bennett writes, “Once you make a choice you must accept responsibility. You cannot escape the consequences of your choices, whether you like them or not.” Problematically, when we make choices and decisions based on a source other than ourselves or the higher power of our understanding, we cease to take responsibility for them. If, or when, we must face the consequences of those choices, we hide behind the fact that they were for somebody else. Such behaviors continue to take away our personal empowerment and sense of agency.

Even if we make choices for reasons other than ourselves, we must learn to own them. Every choice we’ve made in our entire lives demands ownership. Taking ownership for choices is a critical part of the therapeutic process for recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. According to the biopsychosocial model, there are a variety of reasons as to why we started drinking and using. Our brains, bodies, and social environments in some ways conditioned us to choose to use substances to alter the way we felt. However, that choice was still entirely ours as well were the many choices that followed.

In recovery we continue making choices each day, choices we are unfamiliar with. We learn that we have the power to choose how we feel, how we react and respond, how we cope with life on life’s terms. Each day we are given an opportunity to own those choices and be fully empowered in who we are. That is a gift of recovery. “Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice,” Bennett asserts, “Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”

 

Choose treatment. Choose recovery. Choose life. When it comes to making that choice for one more hit or one more drink, the choice is yours. We hope you choose Enlightened Recovery to help you recover. Our goal is to provide a compassionate environment of holistic healing to help you end your destructive relationship with drugs and alcohol. Are you ready to make the choice? Call us today 833-801-5483.

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Enlightened Recovery is here to help you or your loved one overcome drug and alcohol addiction as well as co-occurring mental health disorders. Our holistic treatment programs treat the whole person in recovery. We have locations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

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