When someone thinks of recovering from addiction, what probably comes to mind is rehabilitating physically and overcoming intense withdrawals to ultimately feel normal again. Or even taking the twelve steps to rethink and reroute life mentally and spiritually, inviting in a higher power to take the reins thrown away so long ago. While these might be true, nothing you read online or in a textbook about how addicts start recovery is as close to this: when addicts decide to recover nothing is worse than the intense desire they have to continue on the hunt for their next or last high. Imagine doing anything and thinking of nothing but your next high for months or years in end and then, finally, deciding you quit. While the want to quit is a huge motivation for many addicts, since we truly do know that we are harming ourselves and others going down a dead-end road, that urge to go after more is still there. It is the worse nagging and craving demon on your back imaginable and almost as bad as physical withdrawals. It's easy enough to say "mind over matter" or to tell an addict to give it to God, but if they do not replace this urge with a want for something better and to chase that something every moment of every day, overwhelmingly that insistent demon takes over.
If you are overcoming addiction find or rediscover what you love and chase it. Laugh at the dragon and follow down a new path made out of love and and an unstoppable wish to create a new life out of the ashes of what came before. Find what sets your soul on fire and chase it, is my advice.
