DDA Members Share their Experience on DDA Step 3 of 5:
“We have understood the importance of medications, clinical interventions and therapies, and we have accepted thinned from sobriety from alcohol and abstinence from all non-prescribed drugs in our program.”
“In traditional addiction programmes, I was sometimes made to feel that I was somehow taking an easier, softer way in my recovery by taking medications. This caused a huge amount of resentment and fear in my early attempts at recovery.
For me, medications are an essential part of my recovery. I am lucky and extremely grateful for the fact that as long as I take my medications as prescribed that I am generally pretty stable in my mental health, but I have also put in place with mental health services a process that will kick in if I start to get unwell for any reason.
As someone who is dually diagnosed, I am now aware that some of my previous relapses were down to a deterioration in my mental health. In DDA, I’ve learned I am likely to always need medications, but that there should be no shame in that or in needing extra help for a whole range of issues outside of my addiction recovery.
At times I’ve used mental health professionals, psychiatric nurses, my medical practitioner/GP, and have also completed specific therapy around the traumas that I experienced as a child.
This Step is an essential part of my recovery now and I wouldn’t be without it.”
