Recovery is a process of significant life change that requires mind-body-spirit transformation.

The more different or unfamiliar a desired change is, the more intimidating and uncomfortable it tends to be.

Healthy life changes require trading off actions that make us feel good for actions we can feel good about.

Source: DerWeg / Pixabay

It's only when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of change that change occurs. –12-step saying

Change is hard. And the larger the change, the more difficult and intimidating it tends to be.

Significant life change is hard in part because there is a natural fear of the unknown and the uncertainty that accompanies such change. It can be challenging to do anything that’s different or unfamiliar because anything that is unfamiliar engenders discomfort. There’s a direct correlation between unfamiliarity and discomfort: The more different or unfamiliar something is, the more uncomfortable it usually is.

People often stay in situations that are painful and unhealthy (in some cases for many years) because they are familiar with the pain of the specific situation—they know it so well, they know exactly how it works and what to expect. Remarkably (as nonsensical and crazy as it may seem, especially to those who care about them), on a less conscious level, the perverse comfort of what they know is preferable to risking the uncertainty of change, even when such change has the potential to be much better and healthier.

It takes strength and courage to do anything that’s uncomfortable. That’s why doing things differently from the way you’ve done them in the past always takes strength and courage. There is a common misconception that courage is the absence of fear. To the contrary, real courage is being aware of your fear and doing what you need to do without allowing that primal emotion to paralyze you or dictate your actions.

Making healthy life changes frequently means trading off doing things that make us feel good for doing things we can feel good about. When we do things that make us feel good in the moment, the positive effects of feeling good or feeling better are short-lived, perhaps lasting moments, minutes, or a few hours. They usually take us further away from our values—from the kind of person we want to be and the kind of life we want to live. In contrast, when we do things we can feel good about, the positive effects may be less immediate and intense, but they are enduring and ripple out to other aspects of our lives. Moreover, they bring us into greater alignment with our values, with the kind of person we want to be and the life we wish to live.

Over the course of my professional life as a therapist, clinical supervisor, and clinical director, as well as my personal life as a person in long-term recovery and 12-step program member, I have witnessed and continue to witness profound examples of the capacity for people to change and transform their lives in extraordinary ways. I’ve observed a stunning number of men and women who struggled desperately with active addiction, ensnared in the vice-grip of its long tentacles, seemingly unable to break free. These are individuals often referred to (and sometimes self-referring) as “chronic relapsers.” They went to detox with or without subsequent rehab-level treatment multiple times, with some hitting double figures. They emerged from those treatment episodes clean, at times relapsing shortly thereafter, and other times putting together months or even a year in recovery. And then the gravitational pull of their particular form of addiction began to pull them back toward using like a neuroanatomical tractor beam, and they relapsed—again.

Yet somehow, at a certain point, something clicked for them, within them. It seemed to begin like their previous efforts, and like those prior attempts to stay clean, they began to accumulate time and experience in recovery. No one, including them, could know that anything would be different this time around. But this time, for whatever reason(s), it was different.

Now, a number of those same individuals—those hopeless, helpless, chronically relapsing addicts—are still clean and have 2 years, 5 years, and in some cases, a decade and more in recovery. In the process, they metamorphosed from being homeless, incarcerated, unemployable, and having their kids taken away, to maintaining jobs, getting promoted, and developing careers, regaining custody of their kids, becoming worthy relationship partners, creating/blending families, and evolving into productive members of society. Not infrequently, they grew into recovery community members who are models and mentors for others striving to find traction along the same arduous path.

THE BASICS

Meaningful life change (whatever the area of change may be, whether recovering from active addiction, separating from unhealthy or even dangerous relationships, changing careers, losing weight, getting in shape, etc.) requires three non-negotiable ingredients:

An interest in/openness to changing

The willingness to put in the effort and do the work of changing (and the work is inevitably difficult and challenging)

Actually doing the work of making and maintaining the desired change

This process is simple in theory and light years from easy. It involves ongoing attention, conscious awareness, and intentional action.

The more motivation for change someone possesses, the better, but the importance of motivation can be overrated. People merely need to be open to the possibility of change and actively engage in the process. As the Tao Te Ching expresses so eloquently, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” It continues with the very next step, and the step after that, and so on. This is 2,700-year-old wisdom, and it is just as true today.

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Copyright 2025 Dan Mager, MSW