An External Hope
Four Things Necessary to Recover
- Internal Feeling
- External Motivator
- External Hope
- Internal Strength
The third factor necessary for lasting recovery is an external hope or faith in something outside of the substance abuser that can help to bring about sobriety. This external hope can be in the form of spiritual or religious solutions, but it doesn’t have to. External Hope includes any of the following:
- Sponsor
- Medications
- Support Groups/Self-help Meetings
- Religion
- Therapist/Therapy
- Other Recovering people
- Spirituality
- God
The reason that external hope is critical is due to the fact that a substance abuser has slowly become used to basing his decisions upon an emotional feeling while at the same time creating justifications for his behavior. In other words…a substance abuser will almost always feel that they are making the right decision in almost anything, even when making a deadly decision.
Looking for a solution in an outside source beyond his or her own impaired thinking is critical to bring about recovery. Here are a few questions we like to ask to determine whether or not a substance abuser has any existing hope in an outside source in order to recover:
Does the substance abuser actually believe that there is something outside of him or herself that can aid in recovery?
If you were to ask the substance abuser which outside source of help he needs most to recover what would his answer be?
“Without the guidance or input of an outside source, a substance abuser will essentially use impaired emotionally based decision making and recovery will be temporary.”
Why They Recover: The Four Factors Necessary
For someone to have long-lasting recovery, they ideally need all four of the following:
Read more: Why They Recover
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