Addiction Recovery is not Passive

There is a big push in the world today to develop passive income. The advertisements to develop passive income can be seen all over social media, news outlets, and folks just talking about it. For those who don’t know, passive income is an income stream that brings in money with minimal effort. It basically requires a little investment up front and then it runs itself.

This idea of passive income made me think of addiction and addiction recovery. Addiction is similar to passive income. Addiction starts small, with a little ‘investment’. Then it begins to build. The addiction develops into something bigger and bigger. Soon enough, it’s a raging monster that is out of control.

Addiction recovery, however, is not passive at all. Addiction recovery takes effort and determination. Addiction recovery takes consistent, daily effort no matter where you are along the addiction recovery journey. This realization that addiction recovery is not passive didn’t click for me for some time. I just expected that God would take the addiction away from me when I started attending recovery meetings.

Well, I bet you can guess how well that worked out. I stumbled and fell many times. In fact, I stumbled and fell all the time. I looked around at all the men I attended meetings with and just expected my story to fall in line with theirs. Little did I know that addiction recovery would be among the most active things I’ve ever done.

The Savior declared, “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.” (D&C 58:27-28) There is a huge blessing for those who approach addiction recovery with an active approach. Being anxiously engaged in addiction recovery is not easy, but it is worth it!

If you choose to go on this journey of addiction recovery, remember that addiction recovery is not passive - it is very, very active.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Story

Hi, I'm Billy. I'm a normal guy from the great state of Utah. I have a BS in Mathematics and a Master of Statistics from the University of Utah. I consider myself a data analytics and visualization professional in the healthcare space. I'm passionate about powerlifting and competing in that sport. I grew up in a Christian home based on Christian values. I'm also recovering from an addiction to pornography. My addiction to pornography started in the 6th grade. I heard a rumor one of my fellow students brought a 'picture' to school. I was curious and asked about it. My fellow student smiled and showed it to me. Unfortunately, that's all it took to start my addiction. From that point on, I found myself struggling with images and acting out. No matter what I did, I couldn't shake those images from my head. Pretty soon I found myself looking for more images in any way I could find them. As I got older, I found myself increasing methods to please my addiction.
Read more

Start writing

While I was attending the University of Utah, I overheard an interesting conversation between a student and a professor. The student was a graduate student and began explaining his idea. The conversation that followed was interesting and captivating. Then the professor asked how much time the graduate student had in his program. After the student reported his time left, the professor gave him this advice: “Start writing.” I could hear the tone of his voice. He said it with a sense of urgency and caution. As a student myself, I knew the pitfalls of not putting ideas on paper. Ideas might germinate in the mind, but they grow into mathematical facts on paper. This is due to the writer having to think through the idea and truly show what they have learned. This idea of ‘start writing’ is also true for addiction recovery - especially during the moral inventory. The mind doesn’t forget anything, but its recall power can be light sometimes. This is where the power of writing comes into play
Read more