Recovery as Purgatory? What? Recovery is not a good place to be? Blasphemy, you say? Perhaps. Reality? For sure.

Men - and women, too, - who come to Addiction Busters often tell me that they are in “ Recovery.” Or that they have been in recovery for two years. Maybe five. Perhaps even ten. My thought is always, “Wow. If you have been in recovery for that long, you need a new program. Yours isn’t working for you. As Dylan said it so eloquently, “ You ain’t goin’ nowhere”.

Just what is this mystical, magical, world known as Recovery? This unique place-and-time where we appear to be healing but may, in fact, be doing very little? What do we try to do here? Recover lost jobs, money, possessions, self-esteem? Rekindle relationships long extinguished? Regain solid chemical health that many of us never really possessed? To re-hone skills and tools that were never particularly sharp to begin with? I am not sure what it is we are trying to do. And therein lies the mystery of recovery.

Keep an open mind, now, and please read on: How, exactly, does recovery help us to change and improve, obtain good chemical health, build or rebuild self-esteem, a positive self-image, confidence and respect? Or to add new, stronger and better tools to our tool box...tools needed to help defeat the addictive Beast that dwells within each of us? Well, you see, I don’t think it does.

Recovery is purgatory. Or a form of it. We are neither where we were, nor where we strive to be. We live in a constant state of “retrospective illusion,” looking back fearfully at what and where we were, or may return to, rather than looking and moving forward to what we can become. Instead of looking to our old house, full of destructive, unhealthy, addictive ways of living, we could look to our new house, furnished with health and satisfaction and new ways of living our lives. But sadly, we seem to be ok with purgatory. We say we are “..in recovery” and we want people to think that things are “ok,” that we are “ok,” that we are doing “our work”, “ fixing our stuff “, that we are “cool”. Nope.

Rather than recovery, let’s consider moving into “Discovery.” Discovery propels us forward to explore new aspects of ourselves, to find vibrant, new strengths, interests and passions, to find better and healthy ways to meet needs, and to acquire sharp, constructive tools that will help us build that new house and to abandon the old one forever.

Should we spend any time in recovery? Sure. Regain that which is still available and of value to you. But do it quickly, and stay for a short time only. There is often little for us to salvage, anyway. That is part of “retrospective illusion.” We look too long and too hard to see our future in our past. Sorry. Wrong direction. Move forward in discovery. Move to your new house. It is not an illusion; you can make it reality.

So give it a try. All you can lose are your old addictive ways. There is no purpose in spending years trying to recover that which is lost and gone. Move forward to a new, healthy, safe life that will replace your old ways. Discovery can be exciting, empowering, exhilarating. Who knows, you may discover stuff you have that you never dreamed about.

Sweet.

Tommy Jones created and leads the Men's Center Addiction Busters support group, which meets every Tuesday night at 7:30pm. After struggling with the consequences of his own addictive behaviors for years, he learned alternatives to AA and began the healing process. Now entering it's third year, Addition Busters welcomes men and women who are seeking to change their behaviors around addictions. All types of issues are discussed, such as alcohol, drugs, debt, smoking, food, sex, etc.