Addiction Recovery - Relationships in Recovery

How Rehab Teaches You to Love Yourself

Addiction denies you the ability to love yourself. Rehab teaches this critical skill for a successful, happy life. Call The Forge today for help!

How Rehab Teaches You to Love Yourself

Table of contents

Written by

Brian MooreBrian Moore

Content Writer

Reviewed by

Jeremy ArztJeremy Arzt

Chief Clinical Officer

May 9, 2022

The Forge Recovery Center

Practicing self-love might be a foreign concept at beginning the recovery journey when struggling with addiction. Loving yourself is not always straightforward, as it is somewhat easier to talk about it than put it to action. 

Rehab teaches you to love yourself because your entire identity may have been contorted by addiction. You may have even put your self-care at the lowest end of your to-do list. However, in addiction recovery, rehab facilities want you to prioritize change so your overall well-being can begin to heal, and that starts with love.

Love and Addiction

Every human on the planet wants to find fulfillment with love and happiness. However, when you feel unloved, your impulses or fixations may be distorted. This notion is especially true when addiction is part of the process, as addiction causes a chemical imbalance in your brain.

With the chemical imbalance subjugating itself to force you to believe a specific reality, you may react accordingly. This belief causes the need for dramatic change and can result in poor performance, relationship conflicts, lack of concentration, lack of ambition, and depression or anxiety. 

Addiction causes strains within everyday activities and may even distort the feeling of what love is supposed to be. You may start feeling more fulfilled and loved because substance use presents a way to cope with difficult situations.

The debate behind love and addiction is often a controversial conversation. A lack of understanding and real love can lead to emotional problems and contribute to continued use or breakdown in mental status. Additionally, emotional distress can establish unhealthy relationships where psychological and physical abuse is more prevalent.

If you are struggling with addiction, you may find your love and interest is in pursuing substances or chasing unhealthy lifestyle habits. Love and addiction are correlated because they can find meaning for you in life and can either be the downfall or the uprising of your lifestyle. 

It is normal to feel love and be loved in society. However, when the addiction starts to outweigh the typical response of love, the affection and emotional responses mixed with addiction can lead to low self-esteem issues and underlying concerns.

Why Rehab Teaches You to Love Yourself

Scientists have done extensive studies to uncover how addiction and love correlate. They further investigate how the love of addiction works and factors in recovery. Love and addiction can stem from mental health abuse or lack of confidence.

When you struggle with an addiction, you may seek other options to fill the void you lack. It can be common to fill the void of love with intense attachments to outside things such as substances or unhealthy relationships.

Rehab teaches you to love yourself because the need for humans to love can bring excitement, value, and new experiences. Furthermore, it teaches you the boundaries of respect and codependency. Beginning a recovery journey requires self-reflection, self-care, and addressing underlying core concerns during your day-to-day activities.

When you learn how to forgive and seek appreciation for life apart from addiction, feelings associated with emotional neglect or rejection can be validated with a new source of soul seeking and attention. Furthermore, when you learn to connect with other individuals who have gone through similar situations, the love received from your peers builds a foundational step to lasting recovery and selflessness.

Love is an integral part of recovery because it reintroduces coping mechanisms to fill in the voids of emotional challenges. It also opens up opportunities to motivate you to move forward without the negative impact of a previous lifestyle. Your feelings of frustration or betrayal can be uncomfortable at first in addiction recovery. Yet once you learn how love attaches to desires and actions, new healthy patterns can be learned and implemented.

Addiction Therapy and Love Awareness

Filling a void is essential when taking toxins out of your body in the recovery journey. For many people, this is the feeling of love. When finding ways to fill the void, you learn it through compassion and support.

It can be challenging to fill the gaps alone, and when anxiety or low confidence already exists, filling those voids is essential to uphold a recovery commitment. Therefore, in addiction recovery, the ability to understand love at its core with therapy and professional guidance can provide helpful insights to recognize unhealthy patterns. 

At the same time, you diagnose your behavior and lifestyle choices. Recovery will build overall well-being by cultivating healthy emotional regulation and teaching you how to care for your own needs without sacrificing your well-being to please others.

Recovery Helps You Reengage With The positive

Addiction recovery implements therapy options to help you reengage with reflection, gratitude, forgiveness, and love. When you learn to solve with healthy intentions, you start acting meaningfully. This action leads you closer to breaking free from judgment and understanding love more intimately to work towards your recovery objectives.

At The Forge, you will learn new ways to love yourself by taking small steps and using constructive coping mechanisms. For once, you too have inner peace and do not allow previous lifestyle choices to dictate, mainly if they revolved around unhealthy relationships. The love you learn in addiction recovery teaches you to prioritize yourself and weigh the pros and cons of your value of life.

If you or your loved one want to start recovering, The Forge is here for you. Learn what is critical for your recovery journey and how you can get help for addiction with The Forge today.

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