Hi, I’m David Molletti, Director of Your Personal Recovery.
So, I have my own recovery story. You’ll hear more about that here, no doubt. For now, let’s just say I have done extensive personal research into addiction, abstinence, and recovery. Exploring the difference between all those things and more. I’ve been taken down by addiction, struggled through white-knuckle abstinence and sobriety and then entered true recovery and beyond.
Beyond “recovering” we begin discovery that provides the opportunity for real and vital transformation which really leads to freedom in our lives in ways we could not imagine or had access to before.
It’s why I went into substance use counseling and if we have the opportunity to work together you’ll understand why I continue.
Your Personal Recovery is all about discovering your individual path to recovery. I believe there are as many paths to recovery as there are people seeking it. We use the term recovery because that is the term in current popular usage for someone wanting to regain ownership of their life that has been overtaken by addiction.
What we know about recovery though is that it is a lifelong process and it is really about the journey and not the destination.
This where the other aspects come in that are key to describing this path. Discovery, Transformation, and Freedom. Moving beyond recovery and discovering new aspects of ourselves which allow us to vitally transform and ultimately result in our freedom to live aligned with ourselves.
If that sounds a little woo-woo or like some cat poster, stick with me because I will go more into what living in alignment really means and how that happens in the future.
In the beginning, we see the destination as not-using drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or any number of other behaviors that are damaging our productive lives. That is a worthy destination, no doubt, but that is just abstinence, not recovery. True recovery begins with addressing the reasons we felt the need to use those things. This is where we move to a process of discovery. We are discovering not only the thinking patterns and programming that led us down a certain road but more importantly we are discovering the resources we already own and can refine that allow us to integrate that experience and move beyond it.
We know what we don’t want in our life. It’s easy to define that and say I want to stop! But stopping something is not a plan of action, it’s a plan of NOT. There is nowhere for energy to flow into that plan because it is a dead end. So let’s start with a simple reframe and state what we DO want. State it in the positive and see what we need to support that.
Example: A lot of people drink to overcome social anxiety or even general anxiety. Trouble is, it takes more and more alcohol with time to achieve the result and other shifts take place when you shut down the pre-frontal cortex. This is the decision making part of the brain and the first thing to go to sleep while the rest of us keeps going. MUCH more on this in later posts and videos. So we say “I need to stop or control my drinking”. This becomes increasingly difficult as the brain rewires to operate differently. MUCH more on this in later posts and videos. I’m skipping over a lot of detail here to get to the bottom line. It becomes “about the drinking” because the body, brain, and mind adapt and become dependent. What that really comes down to though is where it started.
I want to feel comfortable in my own skin so I don’t feel the NEED to drink. There it is stated in the positive. I want to feel comfortable in my own skin. Now that is something we can work toward. That has a pathway and a place to move forward. What are the obstacles to that in our thinking (programming) and how can we resource our way through that instead of numbing it away temporarily over and over until it simply does not work anymore.
Yes, that is a simple example but it is the basic story for a lot of us.
Of course, people are infinitely more complex which goes back to one of the very first things I said. I believe there are as many paths to recovery as there are people seeking it. With a desire and willingness to change we can all make an honest open exploration and find new freedom.
If that interests you click here and schedule a free 20-minute focus session. Whether you are supporting someone who needs recovery, considering changes you want to make or have some success and want to augment your recovery with more discovery, transformation, and freedom. Here’s a great first step.
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