Recovery is more than abstinence from drugs and alcohol. It is about looking at the world with a new attitude and claiming responsibility for our lives. Addicts tend to see the world as an adversarial environment to conquer daily only to survive. Recovery demands that you change these attitudes.

"Survival" is not necessary when addicts can begin to believe that life is good. It would be best if you pointed the viewfinder in a different direction to see more optimistically.

Negativity Will Drag You Down

As someone in recovery, you may see life as hard and give up any notion of ever overcoming the odds stacked against you. Circumstances and relationships with others may have become damaged to such a degree that there is no way to right the past wrongs that have been committed. Facing the wreckage you see in your life can leave you feeling overwhelmed and inadequate to face the tasks ahead.

This is when the adage begun in Alcoholics Anonymous of "one day at a time" is helpful. This phrase instructs us to do what is possible in 24 hours to start the process of cleaning up the ruin in your life. It is a daunting task but can be done, one bit at a time, one (12) Step at a time.

Different Choices Equal a Different Life

As you begin the process of cleaning up your past and working through the steps, you will find you start to see the world around you differently. What once felt like a hostile environment, set out to ruin your dreams, begins to feel like a world full of hope and possibility. You begin to take responsibility for your actions and behaviors, both while under the influence of your addiction and while in the recovery process. You finally see that they can make different choices.

The first choice that changes is the way they view the universe around them. Instead of being victimized by the life they had been living, they can enjoy their life by having a say in what happens next. While life will sometimes, or even often, throw an unexpected curveball, new tools and insights are given to each addict to help them see the beauty that is possible. They can begin to build a wonderful life from the ashes of their previous wreckage.