Life Check: Overcoming Judgement as a Recovering Addict
As a person recovering from addiction, you won’t expect the world to be fully supportive and welcoming of you or the efforts you made to have a better life. Unfortunately, there are times when you will encounter judgment from others. They have incorporated this negative “label” of being a substance abuser on you. It can get pretty hard for someone trying to turn his life around to receive doubts and criticisms when what’s needed is unconditional positive regard and support.
However, you have to realize that you are so much more than what they label you as. You can’t force everyone to believe and have a positive impression of you, and it’s not your obligation to ensure that everyone “labels” you appropriately. If they judge you even after your efforts in recovery, the best way to snap back and prove yourself is to rise above these judgments and continue to prove these people how they’re so wrong in so many ways. On the other hand, if you feel like the eyes of society are taking a toll on the improvement you’ve made and want some support system that would help you deal with these negativities, see here.
Below are some important tips that might help you overcome negative judgments and live a healthier life as a recovering addict.
Empower yourself and believe in your perseverance to recover
Instead of allowing other people’s judgment to make you feel bad, stick to your principles and let those people see that you are working so hard to be in your best health. Instead of getting discouraged and talking back at them rashly, preserve your energy for the things that are only beneficial for you. Because at the end of the day, your sobriety will not be up to them. Remember that you’re doing it for none other than yourself.
The only people who have the power to control your life are those you allow to control you. If anybody makes a condescending remark about your healing process, do not ever allow the snide comment to come and live in your heart and take over your mind.
Trust your phase and acknowledge that everyone in this world is a work in progress.
This might be a brutal truth for some to absorb, but people need to stop assuming they know someone, from head to toe, based on only being introduced to a certain fraction of their life. In this case, judging others and labeling them as nothing more than “just drug addicts.” As if recovery and transformation aren’t possible. When society makes you feel like you’re the only one left behind in time, remember that everyone is a work in progress. We all have an equal amount of opportunity to be whatever and whoever we would like to become. The way you “classify” yourself will always be far more significant than those over which you have no power to change.
Just because others are having a relapse, doesn’t mean you will too.
An individual getting back to rehab does not necessarily mean that you, as someone recovering from substance abuse, will. You are the sole deal maker. It is ultimately up to you. What will you do with what you’ve learned and created? Will you let it go to waste or will you stand firm and live up to your newfound principles? Stop worrying about anything and anyone else other than yourself. It might sound selfish, but
Your happiness is determined by your perception of the world and attitude. Just because it’s happening to the majority of people in your situation doesn’t mean it’ll happen to you. You are a completely independent individual, and the only person who can decide what kind of life you will have is you.
In recovery, you have to always say to yourself that no one else can decide what you will become as a person other than yourself. You have come so far, and those judgments don’t matter, for it’s the accomplishments you’ve made are that count.
