Resentments Will Prevent You from Succeeding in a Rehab Center
It is perfectly natural to enter a rehab center filled with guilt and shame and resentments. When you are living as an addict, your drug use becomes the most important thing in your life and it will undermine every important relationship you have. People on both sides of the divide are bound to find themselves filled with negative emotions and a desire to point the finger. For a free treatment referral, call 888-646-0635Who Answers?.
Through therapy at a rehab center, you will begin to look at the way that you function and the things in life that contribute to your substance use disorder. When you let negative emotions cloud those activities, you impede progress and your resulting recovery.
However, this isn’t an instruction to simply let go of everything in one fluid motion of forgiveness. That isn’t possible. People just do not work like that. Instead, you are going to have to do the work and the people around you are going to have to do their work, too, because you can’t live for them.
Finding a professional, structured rehab center than can help you to work through your resentments and succeed at recovery will not be east on your own. Take advantage of the expertise offered by RehabCenters.com. Call 888-646-0635Who Answers? to discuss funding, have your questions answered, and to be connected with the rehab that is right for you.
Triggering Resentment
Unrealistic expectations will prevent you from succeeding in treatment.
Resentments occur when entitlement or unrealistic expectations are combined with impatience. For example, the following are possible thoughts that breed resentment for people in treatment:
- I am in recovery, why haven’t my parents completely forgiven me?
- I have been in this rehab center for three days, why haven’t I received letters from everyone in my family?
- My boss better reward me for seeking help.
- I wasn’t invited to join a group in the rehab center; they must think they are too good for me.
When you begin to think like this, you develop a resentment and it will fester into a full-blown infection. In the examples, the expectation is that you should be immediately compensated for giving up the drugs that you love. That is an unrealistic expectation and the immediacy of the expectation is the impatience. You should be connecting more to what sobriety offers than how you have given up the drugs or alcohol that you love.
It’s important that you use your time at a rehab center to pause when you feel yourself becoming impatient about an expectation. Don’t assume anything; look into everything. Look under the resentment; what is hiding there. Are you acting out of fear or a feeling of inadequacy? Be willing to let go of these feelings. It will take practice.
Resentment Breeds Guilt
Two big emotions that impede success in recovery are guilt and shame. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has an archived manual that illuminates that difference between the two. “Shame refers to negative beliefs about oneself; for example, one is a weak, worthless, or deficient person. Guilt refers to the belief that one has engaged in wrongful behavior, such as stealing to obtain money for drugs.”
An article in Frontiers in Psychology explains how resentment relates to the two. Guilt comes from acts or omissions that can cause indignation, anger or, even, resentment in others. Making reparations can dissipate the response, but you could equally live in fear of punishment or inflict it on yourself. Shame is usually a response to possible contempt or derision.
How does this matter? Resentment causes guilt and guilt undermines successful recovery. If you can stop resentments on all sides, you lessen the chances that guilt develops.
The Single Most Important Recovery Habits that Could Change Your Life
Questions to Ask Yourself
When you feel resentment building up, take time to ask:
- What does it represent for you to hang onto these feelings?
- What would it take to accept that you have been wronged or hurt and that you cannot change that?
- What does it represent to take ownership for your own feelings?
- Finally, who pays the price for hanging onto these feelings?
- Right now, are you willing to let go of these feelings?
Your rehab center will provide therapy that will help you move past resentments and control triggering them, but you have to commit to the program to make it work.
To get the process started, call 888-646-0635Who Answers?. Don’t let resentments slow you down.
