By Recovery Coach Lauren

I was recently in a training where I heard someone say “Deep change cannot be achieved through shallow solutions.” I remember thinking how these 8 words have such great meaning in my life.  

 I remember the first time I was actually ready to give recovery a shot. I realize now what I was unable to see at the moment. Although I did do a lot of work, I was really only willing to focus on fixing the current problems, and not the root cause. This for me is the shallow solution. The belief if I just fix this one problem my life will be “normal” again. Relieving myself of the fear of losing children, other family members, friends, the job, the house the list can go on. Not realizing that I was really just playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with my life. Yes, I can clean up everything on the surface and make it look like, or even believe that things are getting better when I really am just hitting the mole back into its hole until it decides to pop back up again without any warning again and again. Choosing to focus on the symptoms of the problem “the quick fix” leads to instant gratification it feels good at the moment and the fear has temporarily subsided but for how long and at what cost? Until I was willing to look at the bigger picture and the root cause of the problems I was having was I then able to make the deep change within to sustain recovery on a daily basis. It was not easy to do and it was uncomfortable and hard at times but truly worth the work I had put in and continue to put in. The deeper into fixing the problem the better I feel. Finding who you are without the use of a substance and finding what really makes you who you are is a freeing feeling that can be achieved by anyone.  

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