Avoiding the Needless Suffering

The most effective way I have found of avoiding needless suffering in my sobriety is to follow a plan of recovery that puts God at the front of the plan. Then begin talking to those who have used that plan of recovery and find out how they did it. I would also suggest that you stop taking yourself so seriously.

Most of those who suffer needlessly do so because they hold on to things long after it is no longer relevant; especially with things they do not have the power to change. I specifically think that the Serenity Prayer could be very useful.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference". If we can learn to incorporate this type of thinking and letting go, we can then learn to decrease the amount of needless suffering and learn how to replace it with a new outlook on life.

Those who suffer from addiction suffer needlessly, yet the trap is so elusive they don't know how to escape the suffering. I am not only talking about people who are still drinking and using, but also those who still suffer from addiction while they are clean and sober.

Please understand my premise. Just because a person has ceased from the substance doesn't mean they have let go of the thinking that accompanies those who are alcohol and/or drug addicted. I have been, and have known many people, over the years that have let go of the drink/drug but still cling to old ideas that hold them captive and cause great emotional and mental anguish.

Unfortunately for many of those people, unless they can learn to let go of the things that cause the suffering they will return to bottle, the pill or whatever their choice of escape was in order to find relief from the suffering. I have known and watched people who had multiple years of sobriety "go back out" because they could not let go and understand that the suffering was needless.

Early on in my sobriety I had a friend who would not let go of a particular feeling of being wronged and she suffered day in and day out over the course of 2-3 weeks. Gradually she stopped going to meetings and stopped coming to the alano club. I remember learning one Friday night that this person was out with some "old playmates".

I tried to speak with my friend, but she did not want to hear all the reasons she had to be grateful. She seemed to prefer the needless suffering over something out of her control. I finally said to her, "maybe you should go get drunk." Do you know what? That was the only advice she was willing to take. Fortunately, she came to her senses in a couple of days and was able to make it back to AA. To my knowledge she is sober to this very day. She was one of the lucky ones.

Robert Pardon is the founder of becomingwellnow.com, a website that offers recovery information and solutions for those who suffer from alcohol and drug addiction.