GUEST BLOGGER: Beth Burgess and ‘Can You be Grateful For Your Addiction?’

london recovery coach.jpgIn order to recover, alcoholics and addicts first have to go through the painful process of admitting their problem. Then comes the challenge of accepting the situation and doing the work to recover. But can you actually get to the point where you’re happy to be an addict? Where you appreciate what your addiction has given you and you actually enjoy your path in life?

I like being an alcoholic. Truly, I do. It’s an unusual position to take, I admit – but one that serves me well. I’m so happy, I even wrote a book about it. Let me tell you how I came to reach this point – and was able to write The Happy Addict to help others find the happiness that I already have.

The fact is that I spent a lot of my life fighting reality. I drank to escape, to numb, to hide and to retreat from the world. At the end of my drinking, there was nothing I could do to fight reality any more. My addiction was something I couldn’t deny or hide from any longer. The fact that alcohol was now betraying me was clear to me and everyone around me. My attempts at controlling my drinking had all failed and my chances of living through another withdrawal were pretty slim.

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Are you a Victim of ‘Compare and Despair’? by Beth Burgess

london recovery coach.jpgHere’s the latest article from Beth Burgess in the Huffington Post:

‘Much of our unhappiness comes from comparing ourselves to where we think we should be, or where others are, rather than seeing what is positive about our own reality. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, we should be focusing on ourselves and ploughing our unique furrow.

As an addiction therapist, one of the things I regularly hear from clients who are newly sober is that they feel like they are behind everyone else when it comes to where they “should be” in life. Having “wasted years”, as they see it, stuck in a negative lifestyle, they feel like their peers have pulled ahead of them and have their “stuff” all sorted out.

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