Making Amends in Addiction Recovery
When you are in recovery you will do the 12-step program, which includes making amends. How would you go about doing this?
Addiction is a disease of the mind and emotions that is less about drugs and more about why the individual needs to use them. The premise of addiction is using a substance regardless of the consequences. The effects of drugs and alcohol affect the brain’s normal physiology, but the desire and need to use drugs is about the individual’s mental health. People who are suffering use drugs to feel better or different. They are self-medicating even if it appears like they are using drugs to fit in or ‘party.’ When someone is addicted to a drug, they have used it to numb their outlook on life. Stopping drug use is only a fraction of the solution on how to help someone. The person underneath the drugs needs professional help to make their abstinence last, so their recovery will be gratifying. 
What is Addiction Recovery?
Recovery from addiction is when individuals realize they use drugs to cope and want to be done. However, it takes time, and the brain must heal from the effects of the drugs. Therefore, recovery does not occur in one month from a thirty-day treatment program. Recovery requires long-term treatment followed by a lifelong involvement in a recovery program. Recovery programs include 12 step programs, faith-based programs, mindfulness recovery programs, and other structures that each share the same goal: to remain drug-free and become more content as their recovery develops. Clean time is important but is not the only factor that suggests someone is recovering from the mental challenges that led to their drug or alcohol use.
What Are Good Addiction Recovery Programs?
Essentially all recovery programs are good. Someone who was once shooting heroin or drinking for 24 hours a day who has stopped is, of course, remarkably better than before. Still, some people remain clean and sober but continue to suffer from the disease of addiction. Addiction is a mind-powered disease that gets relief from drugs and alcohol. Once a person removes their medication, the drugs, they are still sick. Good recovery programs address the person’s mind and respond to everyday life. Are they at peace, or are they obsessing? Is this individual reacting positively and healthily? Recovery requires guidance and continuous help from professionals and others in recovery.
Do The 12 Steps Help?
The 12 step programs are the most effective recovery programs that most newly recovering addicts DO NOT LIKE. However, those same people will later say they hated the 12 steps because they were not ready to quit. Here the irony is that the people who say the 12 step programs do not work are the ones who return to drugs and alcohol. The fact is that any program is a good program and can work. However, the 12 steps support more people long-term versus other recovery programs.
Twelve-step facilitation therapy is an active engagement strategy designed to increase the likelihood of a substance abuser becoming affiliated with and actively involved in 12-step self-help groups, thereby promoting abstinence. (NIDA)
Addiction Recovery: Making Amends
When a person is recovering from addiction and relies on a 12-step program to help them, they will take each step and apply it to their lives as they make progress. The 12 steps are about admitting that you are an addict or alcoholic. They are also about accepting outside help and surrendering your life to a higher power or God. Step eight asks the person to also make amends to the people and sometimes institutions or places of employment that the addict harmed while using drugs. Step eight says: #8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all
What Does Making Amends Do Exactly?
The process of making amends helps the person stay committed to their recovery by apologizing for how their drug or alcohol use affected other people. Step eight provides the person in recovery an opportunity to heal by being honest. Honesty is not a trait of addicts, and this is why it is so healing. Many people in recovery say that their amends frees them of guilt leading to better mental health and less desire to return to drugs and overall helps them. At its core, making amends to others takes responsibility for their addiction, which erases the power of denial, which is at the heart of all drug and alcohol addiction.
On-Call Treatment Supports 12 Step Programs As One Foundation for Lasting Recovery
On Call treatment services will provide 12 step center treatment programs that give the person relief from their addiction. Our mission is to help people find freedom from using drugs and drinking. Most often, the 12 steps programs do just that and aid the person to remain drug-free long term. Call now for immediate access to our ’12 step programs.
