Living Out Your Values in Addiction Recovery

When you first enter recovery, it is often because you’ve come to a crisis point.  You’ve hit rock bottom in your addiction.  You’re forced to face the consequences of your behavior, like a spouse discovering your deception and threatening to divorce.  Intense feelings of depression or anxiety hit you like a wave, and you might even find yourself wanting to take your own life in the depths of your despair.

This initial motivation propelling you into recovery, however, tends to fade over time.  While attempting to stay motivated, many addicts recognize that they don’t have a strong sense of identity.  So much of who you are has been wrapped up in this addiction.  Leisure time has been spent acting out rather than on personal interests and hobbies.  Relationships have been superficial and shallow.  Perhaps your history of past trauma communicates (mostly negative) messages to you about who you are. 

Without that sense of identity, it can be challenging to determine what you value or what is important to you.  Your addiction has distorted what is important and places itself as the highest priority in your life.  When that addiction is removed through sobriety, it can feel like there is now a void in your life.  You might find yourself wondering: what does life look like after addiction?  This question often arises when you’re grieving losses associated with the consequences of your addiction, like loss of relationships, physical health, job, or financial resources.

How do I learn and live out my identity?

Staci Sprout, a fellow Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, shares that the key to developing your recovery for the long-term is identifying your vision and purpose.  The first step requires you to become more familiar with who you are.

It is essential to develop your identity in recovery because it can replace the narrative of shame you’ve lived under for so long.  Many addicts have also experienced abuse, trauma, or neglect in their childhoods that meant they weren’t celebrated for their unique personality and gifts.  If that sounds familiar to you, you may have no idea what your talents and personality are when you enter recovery, and you need to learn and celebrate your qualities that make you who you are.

When you have a more clear sense of your identity, that paves the way for you to connect with a vision for your future and a purpose to your life. 

Vision

Vision involves connecting with your “’why” – why are you committed to recovery?  Why are you making these changes in your life?  If you don’t have a clear picture of your “why,” motivation can wax and wane.

To connect with your vision, ask yourself some of the following questions:

• If you were free from the pull of addiction, what might change in your life?  What would be different?  What would you have more time to do?

• Addiction is often associated with shame and low self-esteem.  If you were free from addiction, how might you feel more confident? What effect might that confidence have on your life?

• Relationships often serve as motivators for change.  What relationships are important to you?  Who do you want to be in those relationships?

• You’re likely seeking out help from a therapist, 12 Step or support group, or even just reading books or articles online.  What do you hope to get out of those support experiences?  How will you know these have been successful for you?  What will change in your life?

• If you’ve completed a three-circle plan, ask yourself why the activities in your outer circle are important to you.  What purpose are they serving?

• What desires or wants do you have for your life?

When you answer these questions, you might begin to see a theme of values you hold.  Values include such things as family, marriage, mental health, career success, authenticity in relationships, service and volunteering, or advocating for causes that are important to you.  This leads well into the next stage, which is looking at purpose.

Purpose

Examining your purpose pushes you into a more existential frame of mind.  It requires you to ask questions like: why am I here?  What is my purpose on this earth?  What am I meant to do with this one life that I have? 

These questions can be challenging for a few reasons.  First, they put your mortality into greater focus, which can stir up challenging emotions.  Also, they are broad topics that can feel overwhelming to tackle.  If you are a person of faith, your Christian faith or other religious practices can inform your purpose, as they lead you to a sense of belonging to something greater than yourself. 

To make your purpose more practical, consider these questions:

• Use the values you identified in the above vision section and broaden then to fit your entire life.  Ask questions like: what might change about my actions if I wanted to live as if this value were my highest priority?  How might my life look different?

• If you’re involved in a 12 Step or support group, you may appreciate how others have helped you along in your recovery.  How might you want to give back?  How can your story of walking through recovery serve or help others?

• For those in middle-age or older, generativity is a major life goal – passing along the knowledge and wisdom you’ve gained.  How might you pass along this insight and wisdom to others?  How could you mentor younger adults in a similar career field, through their recovery journeys, or in their faith?

• For those who haven’t hit that generativity milestone, what life dreams have you considered or hoped for that you haven’t accomplished yet?  What might you still be able to do with the time you have left?

• What do you want others to stay about you after you’ve passed away?  What legacy do you want to leave?  How would you like to be described in a eulogy?

Exploring these questions related to life purpose can help you recognize the end goal of your sobriety and recovery work. Ultimately, your work isn’t only for you, but it is for those who will benefit after you.  By clarifying your vision and purpose for yourself, you’ll have a more clear path forward whether you are dealing with discouragement in your recovery journey or if you’ve hit a major milestone of sobriety and are looking for what’s next.

A Christian Perspective on Personal Growth and Change: Review of How People Grow by Henry Cloud & John Townsend

In my work as a therapist, I am grateful for the daily opportunities I have to walk with clients through their most challenging seasons of life.  For some, these trials arise from circumstances that spiral out of control or past trauma that has influenced their response.   Or their struggles are caused by their own mistakes or actions, which is particularly true in the case of addiction.

When we face the challenges of addiction, tense marriages, attachment issues, trauma, depression, or anxiety, it’s easy to get caught up in hopelessness.  You may fear that nothing will ever change.  That’s usually what pushes people into therapy – understanding that you’re at the end of your rope.

Normally you’ll understand the what – what you would like to see change.  But the difficulty comes when you ask how: how do I experience freedom from this addictive pattern?  How do I cope with the loneliness that seems ever present?  How do I calm my mind when it’s keeping me up at night racing with anxiety?  How can I find hope in my marriage that feels like it’s on its last legs?

For Christians, these questions can be especially challenging, particularly if you’ve heard messages from the church that the solution to these issues is to “have more faith” or “trust God more.”  Some faith traditions are wary of psychology and therapy, saying that the Bible is all you need for a solution. While there’s always room to grow for every Christian in the areas of faith and trust, and the Bible contains much truth that can be encouraging and challenging, these messages can oversimplify or minimize the process of growth.  There are certainly more steps that can be taken in faith to address the question of how to change. 

How People Grow

Henry Cloud and John Townsend address the foundations of this how question in their book, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth.  They take a Christian, Biblical approach to understanding the mechanisms behind change.  They emphasize that spiritual growth and emotional/relational growth are essentially the same process.  In their words, they state that spiritual growth can and should affect your “real life.” 

This book integrates the concepts of Biblical theology and psychology together in a way that offers hope and help for those who feel lost in the quagmire of their current challenges.  They focus on specific components of theology that have a direct bearing on our daily lives or response to life’s struggles.

In reading this book, I found several of the principles helpful for bridging the gap between Christian teaching and concepts involved in counseling. At the end of each chapter, the authors offer reflection questions, both for personal growth and for growth as a leader.  If you challenge yourself to work through this book, I’d recommend journaling through these questions or discussing them with a group. You can also purchase their companion workbook to have more space for reflection.

Addressing the How

The authors seek to answer the question, “How does a Christ-following person experience change?” Below are a few areas they point out as essential to facilitate change.

The Role of the Trinity

With three distinct chapters that address all three members of the Triune God, the authors remind us of the place of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the process of healing.

• The Father God offers grace through revealing the law, which illustrates that we cannot be perfect and that we need Him and His grace.

• Jesus provides an example for life because He has experienced suffering, temptation, and pain in ways that allow him to relate more deeply to us.

• The Holy Spirit offers empowerment, guidance, strength, and wisdom to change within us through transforming our hearts.

Acceptance

In 12 Step groups, the most important, foundational step (Step One) requires accepting your own powerlessness.  We need to recognize that only when we are at the end of ourselves can we begin to change, truly accepting and experiencing God’s grace.  Experiencing those rock-bottom moments actually lead us to good, in that they point us toward God and away from prideful independence and attempting to fix ourselves on our own.

Acceptance involves recognizing our sin and knowing that we have been given a new standing before God.  If we can’t see our own failures and shortcomings, we can’t receive God’s grace through the love of Christ.  We need to accept the reality of our pain and our own role in it so we can experience hope. Yet because we are already loved by God, we do not need to prove ourselves or make ourselves good enough through sheer willpower.

Practicing acceptance is necessary for patience with the process of change.  We often try to rush change, wanting it to happen on our timeline and within our control.  But patience involves waiting on God’s timing for healing.  This doesn’t mean, however, that you are passive in the healing process: rather, you often take an active role of participating in what God is already doing. 

The Importance of Support

I appreciated the authors highlighting the reality that God often works through people to push along the process of change.  In relationships, we can experience grace in practice through forgiveness, and we can be encouraged and validated.  In grief or hurt, we often don’t feel we have courage or strength, but we can draw upon that of others to help us along.  Others can offer mentorship, modeling the life you desire, such as a 12 Step sponsor who is further along in the recovery process.  Choosing transparency and honesty with friends offers accountability and structure outside of your own faulty self-discipline.  Good friends can challenge you toward growth.

Find people in your life who can offer some or all of these components with a mindset of both truth and grace.  You need people who will encourage and build you up, but you also need people who can help you to grow in discipline.  If you’re part of a Bible study or small group, seek to make that group a context for growth.  Within recovery, social support like this is key to achieving sobriety and living a recovered life.

Guilt vs. Conviction

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone where you express feelings of hurt, but they feel so guilty about how they’ve wronged you that they shut down, become consumed by their grief, and then withdraw from relationship with you? Or perhaps you see yourself here.  This has the opposite effect of what the hurt partner truly desires: reconciliation and connection.

“If you have ever been in a relationship with someone who fails you and is overly concerned with how bad she feels as opposed to how she is affecting you, you understand how God feels.”

— Cloud & Townsend, How People Grow

Cloud and Townsend make an interesting argument that the feeling of guilt as we understand it tends to lead to more selfishness and hopelessness than it does to change.  It quickly becomes tied to shame, or negative beliefs about our identity.  This shame and self-pity leads us to feel bad about ourselves or the rejection we experience from others, keeping us caught in our own heads.  We miss the opportunity for grace here, that we are already forgiven for those mistakes.

They suggest, first, to recognize the areas where you tend toward guilt feelings.  These could be “shoulds”, family background and influence, cognitive distortions, harshness with self, or masking a deeper hurt or responsibility.  Then, instead of descending into a pit of shame or self-pity, imagine a response of grace and love from God in that area, knowing that He has already forgiven you and will do the work of transforming you if you let Him.

Taking Action

I appreciate the author’s choice to address some of the limiting messages that can be portrayed by churches by reminding us of the importance of taking action in response to these truths.  Reading the Bible is good, but without taking action in response to what is being taught, you cannot expect to see miracles of change.  James 1:22-25 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” 

With the support of others, practice responses of obedience to the Holy Spirit’s leading.  Read Scripture and reflect on how it can influence your actions and lead you toward healing.  Recognize the ways God might be calling you to change your behavior.  Incorporating both reflection and action is an essential component of change.

Willingness in Recovery: What To Do When You Don’t Want to Stop Acting Out in Sex and Love Addiction

In recovery circles, willingness to change is a necessary part of leaving behind destructive patterns of sex and love addiction to experience freedom.  Sometimes willingness comes easily.  For example, if you are married and your spouse discovers your addiction, that often creates a push to change as you work to heal your relationship.  You may be experiencing real consequences of your addiction, like an arrest or the dissolution of friendships.  Or you’re early in the process of recovery and motivated to put in the hard work of change.

But as time goes on, you might notice your willingness fading.  You might miss the dopamine rush you got when you were acting out.  Or you’ve ended your relationship with your partner, which removes that motivation to change.  Perhaps you’re feeling shame about your behaviors, and the easiest way you know how to self-medicate shame is with more acting out.

Maybe you relapse, getting caught back up in the cycle of acting out.  Perhaps the boundaries you know you need to put in place to help you along the path to recovery seem way too hard to implement. 

You could be struggling with the cost of recovery, recognizing the extent to which your life may have to change.  Sometimes the work involved in the process recovery leads to a feeling of weariness and a desire to just give up. 

Regardless of reason, it is common to see willingness ebb and flow in the process of recovery.  Instead of viewing your lack of willingness or motivation to change as a death knell to your recovery work, use this opportunity to learn more about yourself and lean in to practices that will help you stick with recovery even when it becomes challenging.

As a note: these recommendations are specific to sex and love addiction.  There are likely different, more targeted recommendations for addictions that involve a substance, such as alcohol or drugs.  If you are dealing with those addictions, reach out to 12 Step resources and specialized counseling or treatment centers to get guidance on how to address willingness in that area. 

What to Do

Remind yourself of your vision for your future.

It can be a challenge to find hope when you’re stuck in the (often devastating) consequences of your acting out behaviors.  Define for yourself what a recovered life could look like.  Even if you never achieve this, what would be the ideal?  Why did you choose recovery in the first place?  What could life be like when you are free of your addictive behaviors? 

Use this vision to help you identify what you’d like your life to look like in 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year.  Breaking down those goals into more manageable time frames can help you make concrete goals or plans for what’s right in front of you.

Target your denial.

Your unwillingness to change often finds support from denying the impact of your behaviors.  This denial often comes in the form of distorted thinking patterns.  I often call this process “addict thinking” versus “rational thinking.”  When you’re acting out in addiction, the rational, healthy component of your brain goes offline. Instead, the addict part of you is at work trying to persuade you that your addictive behaviors are not only okay, but good for you.

Identify the “voice” of your addict part of yourself by writing down the statements of denial that are most common for you.  They might include words such as:

• “It’s not hurting anyone.”

• “I only do it because my spouse isn’t meeting my sexual needs.”

• “I deserve this.”

Then, when you have some space from your acting out behaviors, sit down and write responses from the point of view of your rational brain to address those denial statements with facts.  Come back to these responses when you’re tempted to act out and remind yourself of truth about your behaviors.  To the above comments, you might respond:

• “Addiction hurts my spouse, my children, and most importantly, myself.  I lose control over myself and expose myself to further and more dangerous consequences.”

• “My addiction is how I shortcut my way to a dissatisfying false intimacy instead of pursuing true intimacy with my spouse.”

• “I am not entitled to harm myself or others by my actions.  My behavior promises that it will feel good, but I consistently end up feeling miserable afterward.”

Be patient with yourself.

Acknowledge that this process takes time.  Consider climbing a mountain: when you begin at the bottom, it is obvious that you have a long way to go to get to the top.  As you climb and begin to grow weary, it can be easy to get distracted by how much further you have to go.  You might look up at the summit and get discouraged by the time it will take you to reach the top.  Instead, focus on the step right in front of you.  In 12 Step terminology, this is taking “one day at a time.”

Recognize that recovery is a lifestyle change, not a one-time experience; a marathon, not a sprint. But the rewards of a recovered life will make every step worth it.

Stay committed to your recovery plan.

If you’ve been in recovery for any length of time, you probably have been participating in some recovery-related activities and have potentially even made a plan for how to best address your addiction.  Even if you’re currently acting out, continue to engage in these recovery behaviors. 

If your plan was to go to 12 Step meetings regularly, keep going to your meetings.  Meet with your sponsor.  Make calls to others in recovery.  Keep attending therapy or support group.  Use the principle of “fake it til you make it” until your recovery behaviors begin to shape and mold your thoughts and emotions.  This will eventually create motivation to change if you give it time.

Do the bare minimum.

If you’ve already gotten out of the routine of your recovery plan, it might seem challenging to get back into the habit.  When commitment to recovery feels overwhelming and too much, focus instead on one practical step you can take right now.  (Remember the mountain metaphor.) 

Make one call to a supportive friend.  Schedule an appointment with your therapist or sponsor.  Read a chapter in a recovery-related book.  Practice a small act of self-care – eating a healthy meal, going to sleep early, getting outside for a walk.  Any of these small steps can have a huge impact over the long haul. 

Focus on recovery, not sobriety.

It’s common early in recovery to find yourself focusing only on sobriety and “white-knuckling”, attempting to force yourself to stop by your own willpower.  This usually is accompanied by a lack of commitment to the whole-life change required in recovery.

What’s the difference?  Recovery is a holistic process - much of your life must change.  Sobriety is one part of that, but it is not all of it.  Attempting to keep your life exactly the same and get sober is a recipe for failure, because likely some of what you were doing in daily life contributed to your desire to act out.  Focusing on sobriety involves only focusing on what you can’t do, while recovery shifts that focus to what you can do. 

Focusing only on sobriety leads to beating yourself up about failing when you inevitably slip or relapse.  Rather than placing so much of your identity and hope on sobriety, place that relapse or slip under the context of recovery and see what you can learn from it.  Sobriety is categorized by shame; recovery is categorized by hope.

Ask God for willingness.

The 12 Steps are built around reliance on a Higher Power to do the work of creating change in you, recognizing you are incapable of creating that willingness to change on your own.  Speaking from a Christian worldview, we are told in the Bible that it is God who works in us to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:13).  Ask God to help you with this process. Invite the Holy Spirit to do a transforming work in your heart.

Remember the message of grace here: that if you are in Christ, you are no longer condemned (Romans 8:1) and you are set free (Galatians 5:1), and if you invite God in, He will do a healing work in you and transform your willingness.

Know that you can’t do this alone.

In addition to having the support and help of God, it is essential to have the support of other people to help you make these changes.  Social support is one of the most important factors in any addiction recovery.

Reach out to the people you know who are in recovery circles or who you trust are safe for you.  If you don’t know who those people are, now is a good time to find them.  Start by attending a 12 Step meeting, support group, or counseling session and connect with supportive people who can help you along your path to recovery.