108 - Resistance to Change

Mar 24

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Recovery is not a pill > Recovery is a path.

Recovery is not a quick fix > Recovery is a lifestyle, lived one day at a time.

Recovery allows us to live with a “new set of glasses.”

People in recovery no longer see life through the “tinted glasses” that denial gives them, but they begin to live in clear reality.

A person no longer sees life through the “foggy” glasses of denial, but a person begins to live in reality.

While recovery has thousands upon thousands of personal benefits, the personal benefits do not mean that you’re the loved ones will change along with you, join you, or even be willing to participate with you. This reality is called resistance to change.

Resistant to change can be in the “main person” who has a clear and primary addiction, or it can be in the “co-addict,” or the one who has enabled, adjusted to, joined in, or “put up with” the primary addiction.

The condition of a “co-addict” is addressed in the Codependency Episodes, 32-44.

The question becomes, “How do I do relationship with someone who doesn’t want to join me in this new way of living?”

Recovery From addiction processes and recovery OF who I am created to be is a genuine form of authentic life, without running from one’s own heart.

Resistance to change, then, is a heart problem.

Addiction in and of itself is rooted in denial, which requires that the status quo becomes the primary focus in relational life, not the capacity to adjust to change.

Acceptance of and willingness to change requires the ability to “deny” denial.

Addiction is founded in denial.
Change is founded on “denying” denial.

Change requires that we are open to the following realities:

We see things as they actually are.
We feel the feelings that fit the way things are.
We recognize and address the needs related to the feelings.
We talk about what we see, feel, and need.
We trust that what we share will matter and be attended to.

Recovery requires that a person submits to a growth process.

The human growth process requires the risk of breaking up the “status quo.”

That risk means change.

Change means loss.

Loss requires the need to process feelings or deal with grief, because an ending has occurred, and a new beginning is available.
The new beginning requires letting go of the “status quo.”

The moment that resistance is recognized and admitted, the opportunity for growth is available.

Growth does not mean that a person is controlled by another person.

Growth means that someone is:

not living in denial
capable of being truthful
able to make decisions related to their own genuine choices

Practically, that means that tolerance for another person’s growth “time-table” must be paramount.

Your own recovery is not a dictate to another person.

The recovering person’s responsibility is to grow in their own ability to live fully and love deeply.

For those who are pursuing recovery OF the characteristics of being fully human, this means practicing:

tolerance
patience
willingness
understanding
humility
the ability to “do no harm”

As people in recovery grow in their recovery, they will have to deal with loneliness, hurt, and sadness in relationships in which they wish to be more connected.

A person who is in recovery, must remember that humility expresses the following truth: