how to forgive yourself | Life Recovery

Why Restitution Brings Restoration

You’ve been sober for months. Everyone in your Life Recovery group says you’ve made significant progress. You’re seeing a counselor once a week, working your recovery program and from the outside, everything seems to be going great. But deep down inside, you wonder if life will ever go back to normal and you doubt that long-term restoration is possible.

Restoration is possible. But first, you must make restitution. Step 9 in Life Recovery states, “We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” When we make restitution, it can bring restoration, if not for the relationship but for you in your recovery. Restitution is making amends to those whom your addiction and behavior have hurt. (more…)

The Fruits of Forgiveness in Recovery

Addiction/Recovery

We made a list of all we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. – Step Eight

It’s easy to feel like we want to give up when we get to Step Eight in Life Recovery, right? Many of us struggle in recovery when it comes to forgiveness. Whether we struggle with chemical dependency or codependency, we all need to work through forgiveness if we want to find healing.

Forgiveness is a choice. No matter how much someone hurt us, we can still choose to forgive them. But forgiveness is a one-sided decision that does not have to involve the other person. So we can forgive someone for hurting us, but that does not mean we have to reconcile with them. (more…)