Recovery Capital: Commit, follow through, act.

Recovery is, for nearly everyone who experiences it, the biggest 'new start' that life will ever offer. The years of unmanageability, shame, chaos, anger and loneliness that make up the active addiction period of ones life are replaced by new vistas, horizons and chances. The temptation to 'fix' every aspect of life, to read countless self help books to understand ones problem, to repair the body, mind, family and career as quickly as possible is powerful.

For many addicts, after the initial months of euphoria at being free of their illness for the first time, a tougher period of time follows where the difficult realities of life re-emerge. it is in these more challenging times that the hope that life can be different starts to fade and the brave new world of recovery starts to seem like the old world of addiction, without the supposed comfort blanket of drink, drugs and other substances and behaviours.

Such despondency is the product of our illness and addictive thinking. Where we demand quick fixes, we are offered gradual change. Where we hope for utopias, we are presented with life's realities. Where we are used to instant gratifications, we learn that life's pleasures come slowly and gradually. If we can get through this phase of our recovery with as few tantrums as possible, without sulking and playing the victim, we learn a powerful lesson; that the real rewards in life and the purpose of life are revealed to us if we consistently work for them.

This is the essence of 'sticking at it', the ethos of committing to a new behaviour, a new role, a new relationship or job, a new way of living. Previously, if something did not instantly pay dividends we could quit, walk away or sulk. Now in recovery we must see our lives as things to be slowly and gradually cultivated in the long term and understand that if we regularly nurture the new behaviours in our lives they will grow.

This in itself is an act of faith, because we are not presented with the outcome at the beginning of the process, so we must trust that things work out. We must live in faith that if we stop smoking, change our diet, adopt different attitudes towards others, that change will come physically, mentally and emotionally. It is not down to us as addicts in recovery to stipulate a delivery date when these changes should happen by; our part in things is simply to try, to be consistent and to be patient.

Recently, the Living Room Cardiff's own Sian Edwards began a couch to 5k training group at the centre. Last week service users Huw Jones and Gareth Smith stepped up to the challenge of getting fit and took the first steps to improving their physical and mental health. The act of starting a new habit or behaviour is about far more than simply getting exercise or changing ones state of mind. It's about showing that showing up actually means something and matters. The act of making a commitment and seeing it through, no matter how difficult it might seem starts to raise expectations of what is possible and what can change.

Every recovery began in the same way. It began by someone making a conscious decision to show up in their own lives in the midst of the most serious problem they would ever face. The more we can follow up on that first momentous commitment to change, the more we will learn that life is abundant with possibilities.