The Virtue of Patience: Navigating the Path to Recovery

The Protective Shield of Treatment and Recovery

One of the dangers of early recovery is departing the protection of treatment and recovery too early. Treatment can act as a protective shield against a lot of the harm that is caused by and being caused to the individual in active addiction.

The Reality of Returning to Daily Life

Life will create little cracks in the veneer of this protection. A family, a career, moral and financial responsibilities…. all noble justifications. But generally, these dynamics that the addicted person is trying to return prematurely to have not been functioning properly. Broken trust, debt, and neglect, are a more accurate representation of what is waiting for the addict back to wherever it is they want to return to. Patience, in this regard, is essential.

Understanding Patience in Recovery

The word patience itself, from the Latin word patientia, is defined as the quality of suffering or enduring. So essentially, when we ask someone to be patient, we are asking them to ‘just suffer.’ But there is a virtue in being able to endure suffering.

Facing Painful Truths: A Crucial Step in Addiction Recovery

This is an important principle while attempting to recover from drug and alcohol addiction. In recovery, an individual must face some very painful truths about themselves. Ones they have been avoiding facing for a lifetime in some cases. These truths do not magically appear once the chemical hooks come off the brain. It takes work, and it takes meaningful suffering that can be processed and guided by experienced professionals.

Applying Meaning to Suffering: The Role of Massachusetts Center for Addiction

Viktor Frankl, a prominent psychoanalyst, defined despair as suffering without meaning. Here at Massachusetts Center For Addiction, we endeavor to apply meaning to the suffering of our clients, so that they may have the courage to face these painful truths….as this is the path forward to the peace they have always sought in their lives but have never been able to fully achieve.