Please excuse the backround noise I tried so hard to avoid. With snow days immeditaly followed by winter break was rough with the kids while trying to get my audience too. I'm sorry- I tried my best.
What Recovery Really Looks Like - Speech
“Imagine waking up tomorrow and having to relearn how to live without the one thing you used to rely on just to get through the day.”
Today I’m explaining what recovery really looks like beyond just putting a substance down.
I’m studying Addiction Studies, finishing my CASAC, and I also have personal insight into recovery through lived experience. I’ve learned about it academically and seen what it takes in real life.
Recovery involves rebuilding three things: structure, support, and mindset.
When someone stops using, there’s suddenly empty time. Recovery means rebuilding daily routines — work, meetings, therapy, school, healthy habits. Structure gives stability. Without it, it’s easy to fall back into old patterns.But structure alone isn’t enough.
Recovery changes who you surround yourself with. Sometimes that means boundaries. Research shows support matters, according to the CDC, over 100,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses in a recent year. That shows how serious addiction is. For those trying to recover, support systems like therapy, meetings, and sober communities make a real difference.
And even with support, something deeper has to shift.
Recovery means learning to sit with feelings instead of escaping them. It means taking responsibility, building coping skills, and being willing to grow. It’s not perfect or linear. It takes patience.
Recovery isn’t just abstinence. It’s rebuilding your life, your routines, your relationships, and your mindset.
If you take one thing from this, let it be this: check in on someone who might be struggling. Support matters more than we realize.
“Recovery doesn’t end when the substance is put down. That’s where rebuilding begins.”
I used information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about overdose deaths in the United States to show how widespread and serious addiction is. This statistic helped support the importance of understanding recovery as an ongoing process.
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). Drug overdose deaths in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose
