you’ve prepared for the expected, but what about the unexpected?

Often times, people in recovery may be working on how to cope with and minimize day to day stress. This is excellent work, however, may times, even in residential treatment, we forget to expect the unexpected and that life often comes with issues we aren’t prepared to deal with.

I work with my clients on how to deal with stress management, stress mitigation, and the removal of the things we don’t need or want in our life. Also, dealing with grief and loss. Not as a grief counsellor, but how to identify grief and complex grief, and the stages of grief and loss. As humans, we should expect that we will encounter losses. Losses of friends, family, and others- through death or the ending of relationships. Also, the loss of material things, jobs, children leaving the home, or even parts of ourself.

These losses can bring us through the same grief cycle as death, so being prepared and understanding of the process is more than helpful. If we understand addiction can be created when we have a desire to escape, and the desire to escape negative or uncomfortable feelings being very common, we understand the importance of this work. WHen you are working on your recovery, ensure you are working on being realistic with your life and the events and happenings that have and may or will happen. It’s better to have things and not need them, than need them and not have them. Talking about death and loss can be hard, but being proactive and getting the skills and tools ahead of time can make your recovery much more successful.

“It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.” – Epictetus