You’re going to know a new kind of happiness, a new kind of freedom, and a new peace in your life once you leave addiction behind to enter the lifestyle of recovery. Men who are struggling with active addiction or who are in the earliest stages of their recovery hear these words coming from the mouths of other sober men and don’t know how to believe them. Their reasons in having difficulty believing the possibility of peace in their life aren’t unfounded. Peace can be hard to come by in active addiction.
Addiction doesn’t allow happiness in the end, though it starts with all the promises of happiness in the beginning. Freedom isn’t part of the contract with addiction, though that’s the guarantee. What starts off as liberation in addiction always ends up as imprisonment. Peace feels like it is part of the delivery from addiction, but it isn’t really peace. The peace experienced in addiction is really a numbness, an anesthesia, and being completely devoid of any real feeling or connection to life. It’s a sort of relief, to be sure, but it isn’t the comprehensive, quantum, life changing, validating kind of peace you experience in recovery. That kind of peace, the peace which comes from knowing you’re happy, from knowing you’re free, from knowing you’re sober and never having to go back to addiction again- that is a peace which is unparalleled in this world.
Most everyone will experience the kind of peace we just described, however, it will come in different moments. Where your peace comes from and how your peace looks will depend entirely on who you are and what your life looks like. Generally, you will indeed know happiness, freedom, and peace. Yet there are specific moments, random pieces of history in your life, which will stand out as exquisite knowingness of peace. It might be a morning coffee, standing strong through a conflict, climbing a mountain, seeing a smile on your partner’s face, walking down the street, or realizing you haven’t had a craving today.
As life becomes life again, full of challenges, you might forget that you’re at peace all of the time. Take a deep breath, remember you’re sober, and that everything is in a much better place.
Men are finding freedom from addiction by building a lifestyle of sobriety founded on sustainable recovery created by sustainable change. Inspired by the adventure of living in the Pacific Northwest and the proven efficacy of innovative treatment, our men’s programs are transforming lives inside and out. For information, call us today: (503) 850-2474