Support Groups

Recovery requires a certain environment. It cannot be obtained by reading a book and expecting a magical transformation. It can only be obtained by working hard with the helpful guidance of those who understand how to treat emotional problems.

Help can be found in support groups for the following reasons:

1. In support groups people can be honest and share secrets. This has always been therapeutic for people who are bearing the burden of so much inner turmoil.

2. Support groups provide a place to learn how emotional problems manifest itself -- how their problems get started, when it gets started, and what the symptoms are. Most of all people can learn what can be done about the problem ─ how to initiate and maintain recovery.

3. Support groups provide a lot of badly needed unconditional love. In early recovery, one does not know how to love themselves. However, in a support group others can do for them what they cannot do for themselves. Others can provide the unconditional love that promotes recovery ─ the acceptance that will someday be transformed into self-love. M. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, puts it this way. "It is obvious, then, that in order to be healed through psychotherapy, the patient must receive at least a portion of the genuine love of which the patient was deprived [in childhood]. If the psychotherapist cannot genuinely love a patient, genuine healing will not occur." Put another way, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong." Corinthians 13:1

4. Support groups provide a working environment which guard against procrastination and denial. Even on those bleak days when one is resisting the truth, they know deep down they would not be in a support group if they didn't have a problem.

5. Support groups help prevent a slip or relapse.

6. Calling people in a support group can help them avoid dysfunctional behavior. Like the alcoholic who calls his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous before he takes that first drink, people can be advised by someone in his or her support group not to get married on the third date.

Not only do some people need help, but they also need it on a regular basis. One of the most common mistakes recovering people make is to prematurely drop out of their support group. Sometimes they do this because of complacency. They don't think they have a problem anymore, or they feel strong enough to make it on their own. This attitude can easily lead to regression. Sometimes they are discouraged by the slow pace of recovery. They just get tired of struggling, so they drop out.

It may be disconcerting to find out that there is probably no permanent cure for some of our emotional problems like personality disorders. Still, in my experience this is usually the case. The struggle may get easier, but there is always the possibility of regression. This does not mean that you will always be in a support group. It just means that you must not be in a hurry to discard your support system. It could take years for you to reach a point where the changes brought about in recovery can survive without the support of those who have helped you along the way; and by always placing yourself in the company of people working toward continued recovery, you are giving yourself the best opportunity to succeed. Good soil and tender loving care produce lovely flowers, and support groups provide the optimum environment for recovery from addiction to love.