Recovery is not easy. It is not supposed to be. Recovery does not happen in a day, a week, a month. Recovery is a life-long process that takes time, commitment and daily effort. Anyone can come to treatment for mental illness and/or substance use disorder. Anyone can show up in a therapist’s office or treatment facility but recovery takes more than just showing up. You have to be willing to do more than just show up; you have to be willing to do the work of recovery.

Working on your recovery means that you participate in finding solutions to the problems that left you living with mental illness or substance use disorder. Recovery means finding new ways to cope with stressful situations and negative feelings. It takes a lot of courage to say you need help, to say that you have had enough of being comfortably uncomfortable in mental illness and/or substance use. It takes a strong person to navigate the road of recovery. Are you ready to find your strong? Are you ready to tackle the problems that have left you feeling miserable?

Recovery means working on yourself every day. What can you do to make yourself, your life better? Recovery requires you to find your joy, whatever that means to you. Recovery requires you to find what makes you truly happy, what makes your soul happy, and making time to do those things more often. Recovery requires you to find the strength to focus on what is right for you. Recovery requires you to find the strength to put yourself first, because if you do not take care of yourself there is no way you can take care of anyone else.

I am a firm believer that it takes more courage, more strength, to seek help than it does to suffer in silence. It is easy to remain comfortably uncomfortable in depression, anxiety and substance use. It is easy to make excuses as to why you cannot get better and remain in woe. It takes real courage and strength to come to treatment and participate in recovery, to participate in creating for yourself a new life, the life you deserve. And the fact of the matter is that you do deserve a better life, a life that is fulfilling and beautiful. You deserve more than to live in the pain of depression and anxiety and substance use. You deserve the life you have always wanted for yourself. The question is, are you ready to find your strong and participate in creating that life?