We should note in conclusion that addiction recovery never exactly ends: Sobriety is and has got to be the product of an eternal struggle, a fight that can only be won with eternal vigilance and unfailing resolve. In that sense, successful drug treatment is that which provides for the long-term care of its patients, from drug rehab itself though the aftercare programs and 12-step groups that support addicts in their transition to independent sober living. Recovery, all told, means recovery forever, and getting better can’t ever be a part-time proposition.
The psychological nature of drug addiction is such that sobriety can only ever be the product of active and ongoing vigilance on the party of the addiction recovery patient: If you want to stay clean, you’ve got to choose not to use drugs, again and again and again and again. Put another way, the psychological cravings associated with drug addiction never go all-the-way away, and so it is that addiction recovery doesn’t entail the termination of need so much as the harnessing of it. Addiction recovery patients, you might say, don’t stop wanting drugs, but they do learn how to manage that wanting in a sustainable and edifying way.
Of course, that management is never easy, and long-term addiction recovery is in a significant sense dependent on the sort of support mechanisms provided by aftercare programs and 12-step groups. The fight against addiction is a trying one; sustained addiction recovery is bound to test even the heartiest souls, and that daily struggle for sobriety will wear down anyone who dares to undertake it. Aftercare programs and 12-step groups work to mitigate that wear by reminding addiction recovery graduates that they aren’t alone, and embedding them within a network of other recovered addicts who understand the stresses and strains of sober living in the real world.
But that’s the sort of bridge best crossed when it’s gotten to. For now, know that addiction recovery, for all the difficulties associated with it, really can work, and that sobriety really is a possible thing. If you’re here, you know what’s on the line, and you certainly don’t need to be told how important addiction recovery is to anything that might ever be called life. Please, for you own sake, let today be the day you resolve to do something about it.