Addiction is a serious problem and needs immediate attention to be able to treat it. There are millions of people all over the world who are addicted to some or the other kind of drug or alcohol. Rehabilitation, of course, plays a major role in healing and helping the people to recover but support groups can also help individuals to overcome their addiction. A support group is a group wherein all of the people are struggling with the same disorder. They hold a meeting so as to offer encouragement, advice to people and be a support to someone overcoming addiction.
How Do Support Group Help The Addicts To Recover?
There are several groups these days for different issues and disorders. The support groups help the addicts who want to recover by arranging meetings wherein participants can offer several pieces of advice to each other on the different ways to say sober and clean. These days support groups not only exist for substance addicts but for other addictions like sex or shopping addicts. There exists a twelve step program to help the addicts which are quite similar for most of the groups.
- Admitting the fact that you cannot exercise any power over your addiction like alcohol or drugs and that life is quite troublesome.
- You have started to believe that a power that is greater than ourselves can restore us all back to sanity.
- We have decided to turn our lives and our will towards the care of the supreme power that is God as we understood him.
- Made a search and the moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to the supreme power, to one own self as well as to the other human beings the wrongdoings that one has committed due to addiction.
- Have made oneself ready for God to remove all the defects of our character.
- Pleading God to remove one’s shortcomings
- Making a list of the people that were harmed because of one’s addiction and then willing to make the amends.
- Making direct amends to the harmed people when possible except if to do would injure them in any way.
- Continuation of admission of the wrong doings.
- Seeking through meditation or prayer to improve the contact with God and a wish to know his Will.
- Undergoing a spiritual awakening because of all the above steps and the willingness to carry out this message to all the other addicts.
Benefits of Support Groups
There are several benefits of support groups for the addicts:
- Helps the patient in realizing that he/she is not alone in this
- Assists in personal growth
- Creates an additional source of social accountability to help the people stay on track
- Community environment helps in fostering sharing and growth
- Offers support wherein people feel comfortable in sharing. There is nothing better than to be a support to someone overcoming addiction.
Support groups are an asset for the people undergoing an addiction treatment. The group offers a space wherein you can share your own story as well as listen to the stories of other people who have faced similar situations.