“In recovery” is a phrase used often in reference to substance abuse. It infers that the demons of addiction will always be present, whether the person in recovery has three months of sobriety or three years. However, people can be “in recovery” from all sorts of patterns and issues that plague them even when substances are not involved.
A Diagnosis Doesn’t Have to be Dooming
Many people enter my practice with they belief they are doomed. For some, they have received a diagnosis like Borderline Personality Disorder, which not only carries a great deal of stigma, but also an inference that being “borderline” is a fixed part of your person. For others, they feel stuck in patterns, like always ending up in toxic relationships or dead-end jobs, and feel as if their history is doomed to repeat itself.
The external environment, especially in childhood, has a huge influence on people and instills patterns and beliefs about who they are in the world. Trauma, abuse, neglect, or negative patterns that are modeled for the child are all factors that can create some of these unhelpful patterns later in life. Yet, is it possible to create a new narrative of who you are? Can one become a “borderline in recovery” or a “doormat in recovery”?
The Power of Being “In Recovery”
One reason that this phrase and way of thinking is useful is that it sets realistic expectations. It acknowledges that, “Hey, issue X is a big issue for me and I will likely be chipping away at it for a long time.” It, then, leaves room to acknowledge baby steps and small signs of progress. This is where addiction programs like AA really have a good system going: there is a structure and a way to measure axises of progress, which helps the participant feel like they are making small steps on their way to accomplishing the larger goal.
Without this framework, working on a big ticket item can feel hopeless and impossible. Every time a person finds themselves repeating a pattern, it can feel like further proof of their stuckness. There may be small, incremental successes that are happening, but they might be hard to appreciate within this larger, overwhelming feeling of failure.
Therapy Can Be Your Program
There are programs for substance abuse, love addiction, and eating disorders, but for those of you that are working on issues not typically thought of as “in recovery,” it can be hard to find a program. Therapy can be this program. It provides some of that same support, structure and clarity that programs like AA do.
Partnering with a therapist can help to identify and map out the necessary baby steps needed to give tangibility to what can otherwise be a foggy process. It is imperative to find and recognize these baby steps when working on something really big because that is the only way to make headway. Furthermore, when you are stuck in a pattern, it is sometimes hard to see some of the ways you are enacting and repeating that pattern of behavior. A therapist can act as your “seeing-eye dog,” so to speak, and call out the ways you are engaging in that pattern without even being aware. Therapy makes it possible for you to gain ownership and control over ongoing behaviors and can make being "in recovery" possible.
