Oasis Addiction Recovery Society

The Beginning Of The Journey
I’ll Do It Tomorrow
From the book: Change Is Possible

Some of us are good at putting things off--I become a pro at this. I convinced myself that I worked under pressure and would wait until the very last minute to start something that needed to be done.

It was so much easier to focus on things I wanted to do rather than tackling something that should be done. And If I missed a deadline or avoided doing something completely, I could easily blame others or minimize its importance.

A lot of us have learned the hard way that recovery is a process and it is dangerous to stand still, rather than taking action. But I now know that if I’m not moving forward in my recovery, I will revert back to my old ways of thinking and behaving, making relapse almost inevitable.

To be successful at anything, including recovery, we need to face what has to be done and take the action needed to accomplish it.

I myself had work to do to clean up the past and I had a lot of fear around it. But I knew that moving forward in recovery meant change and part of that change was facing my fears. It would have been easy to wait until I was backed into a corner, but that would be the very behavior I wanted to change.

By accomplishing some of the work slowly and not overwhelming myself, my self-esteem began to improve--I started to feel like a person again. I also discovered that many of my fears around the issues were unfounded.

Experience has taught me that procrastinating is not a healthy behavior. If I avoid or delay doing the necessary work, it will only create new problems and that is something I don’t need or want in my life. My motto is “do it now” because it will improve my life in the long run.

MORE ON EMOTIONS & FEELINGS
OVERCOMING FEAR IN RECOVERY
From the book: Change Is Possible

Most people have heard the expression “fight or flight”-it describes every human’s reaction when they face fear. Often, being afraid of something is logical and healthy because it can help us make decisions about what action to take. On the other hand, too much fear can be a barrier to living our lives the way we want to.

Fears are common among people in recovery. We may be afraid of many things such as fear of living sober (Will it be boring? Can I sustain it?). If this fear goes unchecked, it can easily lead to relapse.

Many of us have a fear of failure because we tend to be perfectionists and we are afraid to make mistakes or take risks. On the other hand, we may be afraid of success and the resulting expectations of ourselves and others. We may believe that we don’t deserve to “win” because of our bad behaviour in the past. We hear the expression “self-sabotage” a lot, but it is more like “self-doubt”, causing us to not put forth our best efforts.

We may also fear losing our identity in sobriety (who am I when I am nor drinking or using?) We are afraid to redefine ourselves and remember who we were and what interested us before our lives got so chaotic.

Overcoming all of these fears is hard work but by actively engaging in our recovery program and staying in the “now”, we can push ourselves to walk through the fears and live with peace of mind in sobriety.

Ontario Trillium Foundation