Dear Readers,
We are always told how important it is to keep busy whilst we are trying to recover and there are good reasons for this. The most obvious reason is that when you are busy with something else you won’t be thinking, obsessing or daydreaming about whatever substance you are addicted to and trying to recover from. From my past experience, if I had too much spare time then I found myself thinking about it.; keeping busy helped.
I suggest doing something you enjoy, it will make you more focused and it will enable you to concentrate on recovering and getting help. If you take on too much all at once, this could cause you to become stressed and make you a lot less likely to continue with the activities and meetings, leaving you feeling disillusioned, which can the battle for recovery that much harder to win.
A reason that may not be so obvious, is that keeping busy and getting involved in activities, I believe, doesn’t just help recovery, it IS recovery. A lot of addicts end up with only having fellow users as friends and not really any social life to speak of. Hobbies and interests that you once had were given up a long time ago as a result of depression, the loss of friends and perhaps selling once loved possessions such as musical instruments to fund the drug habit. This is something that I have had personal experience of.
So when you are recovering from the nightmare of an addiction, keeping busy, if focused and properly planned, is in truth helping you build a new life for yourself, by making new friends and sparking new interests. Slowly but surely you will become stronger and more sure footed through the recovery process.
Eventually you will have made a life for yourself that is worth living and you will look back at your addiction and not recognise the person that you used to be as you have earned yourself another chance at life, which you should grab with both hands. Everyone deserves happiness, all of us.
Keep busy, stay focused, look at the stars but keep your feet on the ground.
Try your hardest but don’t forget to have fun! So good luck with your recovery, you know you can do it!
You can rise above the ashes of addiction, today is a new day, and you can live a new way.
Love from the News Editor
For writers, artists, musicians, and creators in every field, this book offers a complete addiction recovery program specifically designed for the creative person. Full of explanations and exercises, this book presents ways to use your own innate creative abilities in service of your recovery and at each stage of the recovery process.
Topics include: the biological and developmental risks unique to creative people; the special personality traits that can inform the recovery process; ways to approach your recovery much like your art; and exercises that promote your creativity and art that aid the recovery process.
This book gives a clear picture of the relationship between creativity and addiction and lays out a complete program so that you can live a fully creative and addiction-free life.
Recovery Rises news
editor (D2DI Student) Graham Gordon gives a personal view
BOOK FEATURE
Creative Recovery:
A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity
By Eric Maisel & Susan Raeburn