Recovery Is A Process for Women With Addiction

Many people think that drug addiction recovery involves turning a corner or having one singular time that defines their journey.  An recent research article shows how that isn’t necessarily true for women.  Drug treatment and recovery for women is often a slow process.

Addiction Recovery Is Not A Quick Cure

Just as there is no cure for addiction, most women with addiction seem to have no identified turning point in their recovery.  It’s not the same as finding the right medical treatment for a disease or paying off your credit card debt with your tax refund.  This new information highlights the complex nature of drug addiction for women.

The recovery process is slow simply because there are so many layers of understanding and experience that happens.  It is as much as transformation than anything else.  Drug treatment is often a starting point for this process.  Drug treatment can also happen more than once in a recovering woman’s life.

It’s unlikely that a mentally healthy woman would become a drug addict overnight.  There’s a certain breakdown of functioning that occurs over time.  Or sometimes, a woman never learns many healthy coping skills in the first place.  This leads to a strong need for instant gratification to deal with pain of some kind.

Acceptance and Adjustment Of Healthy Changes Takes Time

When a woman has mostly focused on instant gratification, she needs a great deal of practice and support to unlearn this way of coping.  She doesn’t gain full understanding of every habit or the impact of her addiction all at once.  It slowly unfolds as she is able to accept and absorb each new piece of learning.

Accepting new things and making adjustments takes time and energy.  For the recovering addict, this can be frustrating.  She has been used to doing drugs or alcohol, which would change her mood or awareness very quickly.  Healthy coping methods do not always deliver instant dramatic results like this.

Drug Treatment Just Part of The Long Recovery Process

Drug treatment can help a recovering woman challenge her addiction thinking, uncover painful realizations in a safe environment, and stay accountable to the process of change.  It’s normal for hern to have ups and downs in drug treatment.  She most likely has some deeply painful issues at the core of her addiction.  These may take the longest to really get into.

Also, a woman just starting drug treatment is not going to have the same insight about her addiction as a woman who has been sober for several years.  There are some things that a person can’t comprehend or be ready for unless she has first understood some more basic issues.

For example, a woman who has been promiscuous during her addiction will not be able to learn how to choose a better partner until she comes to a solid understanding of the type of partners she chose while using drugs and alcohol.  Even when sober, it may take her a while to stop choosing bad partners.  As she  continues to stay sober, realizations and understandings can more easily rise to the surface in her mind.

Drug treatment is part of the recovery process, but much of it also happens in formal support groups, families, and with personal reflection.  There is no way to predict when these will unfold, much less at the same pivotal moment.  Each recovery process is as unique as the woman experiencing it.