When you enter an addiction recovery center, you learn many things. You learn what addiction did to your life and what recovery provides. You will learn the benefits of self-care and the happiness that being in sobriety brings to your life. Your substance abuse counselor will even guide you about things that you can expect in your future.
However, when you are in rehab, most people do not talk about the 10 things that you will never miss about your addiction. While going through the steps to recovery, people talk about missing things about being high, but they never mention the things about their addiction that they will never miss. The 10 most common things that you will never miss about addiction include:
1. Loss of Time
Addiction steals your time. You are so focused on getting what you need to get high, staying high, and then repeating the process that you lose all sense of time. Without the addiction, you will now have time to do things you always wanted to do.
2. The Negative Effects On Your Appearance
Addiction takes a toll on your appearance. Poor health from the addiction can damage your teeth, your skin, and your hair. While you are in rehab, you will begin to feel better and look better as your health improves from breaking the addiction.
3. Making Risky Decisions
When you have an addiction, your main focus is feeding that need for your substance of choice. In many cases, a person with an addiction will make choices that may not be morally sound or extra risky to obtain their fix. When you are in recovery, you no longer have to worry about these choices.
4. Your Reputation
Yes, believe it or not, you had a reputation as the person with the addiction. When you go into drug rehab, you lose this reputation and become a person with a positive future.
5. Withdrawals
Even the word makes you cringe. You know how withdrawals felt and how desperate that feeling could make you. When you enter a substance abuse program, you will break your addiction, and you will not have to worry about withdrawals anymore. That is one of the best things to leave behind.
6. Losing Your Personal Items
How many times have you had to retrace your steps to find things you lost while you were high? How many things did you discover that you sold or traded for a fix because you were desperate and did not even realize that you did this until a later time? This is something you will not have to worry about anymore.
7. Losing Your Jobs
It is hard to manage a career and an addiction. Sadly, addiction often wins this battle. When you enter into recovery, you will begin to build yourself a new future, including a career. This time, however, you will excel at your job because you will not have to worry about feeding your addiction.
8. Wasting All Of Your Money
Addiction is expensive. All of your money will go to feeding the addiction. You will sell your possessions to get more. The need for the drug can be so intense you may find yourself finding creative ways to get more money. Now that you are sober, your money can go for things that really matter to you, and you can enjoy the money you earn.
9. Not Being In Trouble With The Law
If you have any kind of addiction, there will be a time that you have a run-in with the law. You may be caught driving under the influence. You may get in trouble for being disorderly in public; you may get caught stealing. The list is long. It really doesn’t matter what the issue is; the fact is that there will be encounters with the law when you have an addiction. When you enter into sobriety, you can make positive choices in your life and avoid interactions with the law.
10. Forgetting Your Dreams and Aspirations
Addiction steals your dreams and your hopes for the future. When you leave drug rehab and enter into recovery, you get back your dreams and aspirations. You will have the ability to achieve whatever you desire because the addiction will no longer be in control of your life.