The 5 Stages of Addiction Recovery
Addiction recovery is a long process that requires a lifetime commitment and hard work. Majority of people battling addiction don’t even realize they have a problem, and the few that do don’t make it to full recovery. Due to the different levels of addiction, every patient follows a different path to recovery, including outpatient treatment, years of therapy, residential care, or just counseling and medication. Even so, most patients recovering from addiction go through similar stages in their walk to full recovery. So, what are the five common stages of addiction recovery?
Pre contemplation and early awareness
There isn’t much recovery at this stage but people struggling with addiction have to start somewhere. At the pre-contemplation stage, patients are in denial. While this may seem as a hopeless time in a patient’s life, it will serve as a reminder of somewhere they never want to go back to during the recovery process. At this time the patients starts to realize some of the issues arising in their life due to their addiction. As a result they start yarning for recovery. They slowly shift from denial to having the desire to change.
…show more content…
Even though they have the will to change, they still lack the power and strength to start the recovery process. But with time, they start to notice how their behavior is affecting their lives and those around them. At this point they make a decision to quit drinking/drugs. They will start out on their own by trying to control the amount of alcohol/drug