Many men and women suffering from addiction have molded their lives and personalities around their drug use. It becomes “normal,” and giving up the perceived comfort that comes from substance abuse can be a frightening prospect. After all, we often used drugs and alcohol as a means of medicating ourselves from other, deeper problems in our lives. We may feel that giving up what we believe is our “solution” could put our entire sense of identity into jeopardy. The truth, however, is quite the opposite. We may see people before and after sobriety and think that they have changed in ways that make them unrecognizable. This is not a result of becoming a different person. It is the result of finally being able to be themselves. The process of recovery requires deep introspection and reflection about who we are when drugs and alcohol are removed from our lives. Often, we realize that we had built a façade around our self-identification as a drug user. When that get stripped away, what’s left is the reality of who we are, free from the falsehood of drugs and alcohol. Addiction is often driven by fear. Drugs and alcohol are a coping mechanism to relieve us from that fear. Michael J. Formica, in a 2009 Psychology Today article entitled The Challenges of Self-Identification and Addiction, explains, “Addictive behavior is a survival mechanism prompted by fear, shielding us from confronting our deeper demons by providing us with a superficial demon.” It is easier for us to see drugs and alcohol as our problem rather than examining the internal factors that have been driving our addiction. When we engage honestly and thoroughly in a program of recovery, we gain a new insight into ourselves. We toss aside our past self-identification related to drug and alcohol use and get to know ourselves at a deep and spiritual level. The changes that occur as we recover from addiction may seem dramatic, but all we are doing is removing the walls we have built up around ourselves and finally living with the emotions, behaviors, and actions that reflect our true personalities. We don’t become someone else in sobriety—we finally become ourselves.
Your story can become one of honesty and redemption in sobriety. You can make the decision to seek help now and embark upon the rewarding journey of recovery. Oceanfront Recovery, located in beautiful Laguna Beach, offers a variety of highly-effective treatment techniques and methodologies, including Narrative Change Story, to help you heal from the damages caused by active addiction. For information about individualized treatment options, please call today: (877) 279-1777
