Anxiety and the Social Media Doom Scroll

Principles of Recovery. I Followed Them. So Should You.

This week we’re talking about why its far more useful to focus on the principles of recovery than to try to mimic my recovery step by step and action by action. Don’t use my recovery as a literal blueprint for yours because you are not me and I am not you. We are all different and those differences matter in terms of specific steps, actions, and instructions to follow in recovery.

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The Highlights

Sometimes you will want to ask me (and people like me) exactly what I did to recover. What steps I took. What exposures I did. What thoughts did I have?
This is to be expected. We can look to others that came before us to find hope, encouragement and some inspiration. But there is a limit to that!
Instead of focusing on WHAT I did to recover, focus on WHY I did those those things.
Connect to the principles I’m discussing and do your best to apply those principles within your specific situation.
Everyone is different and everyone brings different experiences, perspectives, and beliefs into the recovery process. You are not me and I am not you, so my recovery cannot be a step-by-step blueprint for you to follow.
Relying on WHAT someone else did to direct your recovery completely discounts your unique situation and your unique presentation of thoughts, fears, emotions, and symptoms. My exact recovery can’t be your exact recovery nor would yours ever be mine. That’s OK. We’re allowed to be different!
Sometimes when you only look at what a person did rather than what principles they were relying on, you can wind up feeling frustrated and wondering why their plan just doesn’t work for you or fit your circumstances.
I’m happy to share my story openly because you have a right to know who you’re listening to. I think my experience makes me a better teacher and helper, and I hope it will make me a better therapist. But my personal experiences alone are not enough.
This is a thing I’ve learned over time and its why I will often refuse to answer questions about exactly what I did in my recovery. For someone looking for instructions on how to to hard things, just saying what I did isn’t going to be helpful and can often be harmful in some ways.
If you find a helper that just keeps going back to what they did and uses they own personal experience as the basis for much of what they say, be mindful of that and beware of the traps that lie in that approach. You can accidentally wind up feeling more confused, frustrated, and upset with yourself than you need to be.
This is a difficult, counterintuitive, frustrating process that requires us to be brave and do things we’d rather not do. It’s difficult enough already! Following the principles of recovery and applying them as best you can in your specific situation can give you the best chance of success in recovery.