Anger can be unhealthy. While there are certainly times where anger is a proper response to a scenario, holding on to lasting anger and bitterness over a long period of time is not a good thing for anyone.
It can be an impediment to proper healing and mental well-being, creating a constant roadblock to a healthy processing of feelings and emotions.
This is just as true for recovering addicts as anyone, although recovering addicts certainly have a lot to feel anger and bitter about. Yet to find a greater recovery, it is vital for the recovering addict to learn the power of forgiveness by letting go of resentment and anger.
For the recovering addict, emerging from addiction treatment and facing life without the constant burden of substance abuse weighing upon them, there can be an instinct to feel a great deal of anger and resentment. Sometimes it can be directed at others who the addict feels didn’t help them or reach out to them when they were in need. Sometimes it can be more internally directed, as the recovering addict feels anger at themselves for falling into addiction and taking so long to seek help.
And sometimes it’s not even directed at any one person or group, but more of just a general feeling, a constant simmering resentment at everything, perhaps life itself, for turning out the way it did and leaving the recovering addict where they are.
Addressing inner failings and wrongs can be a beginning to a healthy reckoning of emotions, but a continual dwelling on these things is the wrong way to go about it. Constant, boiling anger and resentment can only lead the recovering addict into a recurring pattern of recriminations and complaints, brooding and lashing out in turn.
Ultimately, this can end with the recovering addict seeking any sort of relief from their own anger, which can eventually end up, in the worst possible case, with a return to substance abuse and plunging back into the cycle of addiction once more.
That is why the recovering addict needs to work on releasing this pent-up anger and frustration and focus on forgiveness. They must forgive those they feel wronged them. They must look for forgiveness from those they may have wronged. They must forgive themselves, most of all. And they must cultivate more gratitude for finding a way into recovery, rather than resentment for addiction.
It can be a hard process. We’re not always good at forgiveness, after all. Seeking forgiveness from a spiritual source may be somewhere to start, and with help from God the addict can perhaps forgive others, too.
At Good Landing Recovery, letting go of anger in forgiveness is an important part of the treatment and recovery process. Finding physical healing without attention to the addict’s emotional state is a recipe for relapse without other help. But Good Landing works to help the patient forgive themselves and others and go into recovery with a better outlook.
Anger is a natural response to many aspects of addiction and substance abuse, and it can be a spur to action, but the patient cannot be angry all the time, lest it overwhelm them.
The power of forgiveness is in showing the patient a way out of this bitterness. By letting go of resentment and anger, the patient can find a greater recovery. Good Landing can help with this process, so give them a call and get started now.