A Letter to My "Disease?"

In many treatment programs, invested counselors utilize an assignment which is usually given to those recovering individuals who have attained a measure of stability.

The assignment is really a request that the client write a letter to their "disease" i.e. their addiction. They're asked to reflect on how their substance use has ravaged their lives and by putting pen to paper, verbalize life lessons learned.

Through the years, I've read a number of such letters and have been deeply moved by the sincerity, pain and resolve couched in such writings.  Nevertheless, many of these people lapse. Others relapse. Still others, overdose and die.

What can we do? As treatment providers, it is incumbent upon us to provide our clients with what we know to be true.  We know that words shape ideas.  If those ideas are strong enough in our minds, they shape our thinking and subsequently, our actions.

To write "A Letter to My Disease" is an effort to communicate to an entity, a power outside of me.  It subconsciously supports the notion that my addiction is my assemblage of decaying body parts and dark thoughts which came to life and turned on me!

Please!

The exercise is a wonderful one. Just re-title it to reflect the truth of reality:

"A Letter to Myself"

I lost my reality by repeatedly making poor choices. 

I can recover my reality by repeatedly making good choices.

Try saying it this way: "Once an addict, Once an addict"  . . . because I say live so!

                                                                                                                     - Ed@recoverreality.com