What is Recovery?
Recovery from addiction or an eating disorder is not the elimination of desire or the pull toward the behaviour. It is the development of the capacity to live freely in the presence of that pull.
Recovery from addiction or an eating disorder is not the elimination of desire or the pull toward the behaviour. It is the development of the capacity to live freely in the presence of that pull.
“Generally people who think about recovery believe that suddenly the behaviour, the obsession, the desire will disappear. No. Recovery is about managing symptoms — being able to live free of those symptoms and experiencing your emotions.” — Philippe Jacquet
What recovery actually looks like
Recovery is a life no longer organised around the substance or behaviour. It is the capacity to feel disappointment without reaching for a drink, to feel loneliness without restricting, to feel anger without a binge. Not the absence of feeling — the presence of it, without the compulsive response.
Where there is genuine engagement with life — something worth living for — the vacancy the disorder occupied begins to fill with something real.
The role of pain in recovery
“In therapy you speak about something and suddenly you feel the pain. And by feeling the pain it is an invitation for change — because human beings generally change only if there is pain.” — Philippe Jacquet
Book a consultation with Philippe Jacquet — psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, London.