Helping others is one of the best ways to help yourself. If you’re in a treatment program for substance abuse or other addictive behavior, you may be getting the message over and over again that addiction is a selfish, self-centered disease.
When you’re sober and can think clearly, this idea may seem like an insult to your intelligence or an affront to your dignity. You might even feel insulted by the suggestion that volunteering time or money to help others somehow “heals” you more than volunteering time or money for yourself. In this post, we will explore how helping others will help you in your recovery.
How Helping Others Will Help You in Your Recovery
You will no longer be resentful or angry. Resentment is a common emotion in recovery, as it can be difficult to accept that you are free from the feelings of anger and bitterness that once kept you stuck in addiction. When you’re asked to help others, you’ll begin to realize that what once seemed like a burden could now be your opportunity to start fresh.
The resentment that you might once have felt toward your past or current life in recovery will be replaced with love and compassion.
You’ll feel grateful for the help that you’ve received. Helping others will affirm your gratitude for the opportunities you have been given to change your life and alter the course of history. The help you give others will show how grateful you are to live a sober life and how far after addiction treatment that life has brought you.
You’ll discover new passions. When you help others, you won’t have time to focus on your own problems and issues. You’ll be too busy helping others with theirs. This can lead to a new appreciation for what’s truly important in life and connect you with your passions.
You’ll feel more confident in your capacity to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Volunteering at a rehab center or working with a charitable organization will give you an opportunity to practice being of value to other people in the world. When you focus on others and what you can do for them, you’ll feel more confident that you can create a life worth living.
You’ll rediscover the joy of giving. When something is taken from someone else, it takes away the chance for them to motivate themselves to receive it later on down the road. This makes sense if we think about how people often get into debt to buy something they want but don’t truly need or can’t afford in the first place. Giving something to someone else will make them more open to receiving additional things from you down the road.
You’ll find a new purpose in life. The fact is, most people don’t feel quite right when they’re not helping others. When you make a choice to volunteer or give money to another person, it will feel right to you. This is how you can understand why people often turn their lives around and become productive members of society after an experience that led them into addiction treatment: they were given a reason to live by helping others. The choice they made to help others gave the rest of their life meaning and purpose.
You’ll naturally put others’ needs above your own. Giving to others will make you more comfortable with taking care of yourself, as well. This is because you’ll want to be able to give back to those who need your help. The fact that you were able to help someone else gives them even more motivation and incentive to continue helping themselves and others in the future. Giving isn’t selfish; it’s selfless, as long as you don’t expect anything in return for it.
You’ll no longer suffer from guilt. The thought may have tormented you that you were selfish for not being there for others. However, when you’re helping others, you can wipe the slate clean and create a new narrative of giving to others instead of receiving. You’ll know that the only reason you could help someone else was that they needed your help, and you wanted to give it to them. You’ll realize that this experience will have taught you an important lesson about gratitude and selflessness that will stay with you forever.
In conclusion, it may seem counterintuitive that helping others will help you in your recovery more than helping yourself. However, it is true that when you’re newly sober, you need to focus on building a strong foundation of self-worth and a sense of dignity and purpose. Helping to support others can be an important catalyst for this change. For any assistance, feel free to reach us on 833-680-0165.