Drug and alcohol addictions take many things away and give few things back. As dependency intensifies, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. Values represent your perception of right and wrong. Core values are the feelings that define who we are, giving life purpose and meaning. At Crestview Recovery in Oregon, our residential treatment program helps you rediscover recovery core values.
Recovery Core Values
As you work through your program, you gain more self-confidence that you can resist cravings and walk away from substance use. In our holistic therapy programs, you explore your thoughts and feelings and reconnect with what makes you who you are. Often this includes the rediscovery of your innate sense of right and wrong, which guided your actions before you became lost in addiction.
Do you remember what you lost? Recovery core values consist of those deep-seated feelings–intimacy, loyalty, health, integrity, honesty, ambition, learning, and others–combined with your commitment to sobriety and self-healing.
To achieve full psychological healing, you have to relearn what your values are to avoid a sense of dissatisfaction and lack of purpose that can lead to relapse. Defining your values helps you adhere to them. In turn, this can prevent actions that leave you riddled with shame, anger, and a sense of failure.
Rehab Tips for Reconnecting with Your Values
When you become addicted to drugs and alcohol, healing must include your mental and emotional health as well as your physical well-being. During your time at Crestview Recovery, you will lay the foundation for future healing, and part of this journey includes a commitment to recovery core values.
We recommend writing down the feelings that guide your actions — or that you want to guide your actions
Examples of Core Values in Recovery
Examples of recovery core values include the following:
- Making the right choices: Drugs and alcohol rewire your brain and control your behavior. Y subsequently feel compelled to continue using them as your tolerance increases. During detox, you free your mind and body from drugs and alcohol. Now, you have a choice. When you choose to get help and stay sober, you exercise new life skills you learn in life skills rehab. You also set aside the skewed habits that defined you during addiction.
- Loving kindness: This one may sound a bit like a greeting card. However, acting out of kindness changes you on a fundamental level. Begin by showing yourself forgiveness and love. This is one of the most important recovery core values because it helps you re-establish your humanity and dignity.
- Compassion: Similarly to loving-kindness, compassion applies both to yourself and others. For example, you may feel guilt and shame at any time during your recovery. You might feel a sense of low self-worth due to failed attempts to give up substance use in the past. Reinforcing those negative beliefs fuels the cycle of relapse and stands in the way of your recovery.
By replacing blame and judgment with compassion, you can forgive yourself and invite others into your life to fill the void left by drugs and alcohol.
- Respect: When you respect someone, it shapes how you act and feel towards them. You acknowledge their importance and value. When you respect yourself and others, you recognize that everyone walks a different path. Before judging others or condemning your own actions, consider where you have come from and where you want to go.
Residential Treatment Program in Oregon
At Crestview Recovery in Oregon, our residential treatment program reinforces recovery core values at every group and individual session. In our recovery and aftercare programs, you receive rehab tips to help you stay focused on your journey of self-discovery. Contact us at 866.262.0531 to find out more about drug treatment programs.
Since 2016, Dr. Merle Williamson, a graduate of Oregon Health Sciences University, has been the Medical Director at Crestview Recovery, bringing a rich background in addiction medicine from his time at Hazelden Treatment Center. He oversees outpatient drug and alcohol treatments, providing medical care, setting policies, detox protocols, and quality assurance measures. Before specializing in addiction medicine, he spent 25 years in anesthesiology, serving as Chair of Hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and Chief of Anesthesia at Kaiser Permanente. This experience gives him a unique perspective on treating prescription drug addiction.
