Long Term Addiction Recovery - what should it look like?

What is the long term goal in recovery?

Be honest with yourself in terms of how much growth you have made in the last 30 days, the last 90 days, the last year. Are meetings pushing you forward, or are they keeping you stagnant?

If you are not getting inspired growth and continuous progress based on your meeting attendance, then it is possibly time to redefine your recovery path. It can be easy to coast along, become stagnant, but because you have not relapsed you forget there is more.... Are you really growing?

The point of recovery is to recover a life of purpose and meaningful growth. There is a tendency in 12 steps to focus on one type of growth - spiritual growth.  Holistic growth however  is the key to a successful life in recovery, and it does include the idea of spiritual growth.

If you have mastered the basics in recovery, sitting in meetings too often can become an excuse for inaction. Your real priority in recovery should shift to one of personal growth. New goals should appear in your life or you should find more meaning and purpose in other ways. .Keep going to meetings in long term recovery but don’t do it because you NEED to in order to stay sober. If that is the case, your recovery needs work.

Meetings are great but dependency on meetings after long term recovery is not good and can create a mental background of fear. Growth is the goal, not just stability.

Aly Birmingham Geats
Coach, counsellor and therapist on Sydneys upper North Shore