What Winners Do – An Addiction Recovery Blog Stories, Struggles And Success of A Recovering Addict Trying to Do What Winners Do

Addiction Recovery: Sickness or Backsliding?

In active addiction, part of my avoidance tactics included taking something like a small nagging headache and turning it into a reason to miss work, lay in bed all day and pretty much take a vacation from life.

Since those minor aches and pains show up more and more in active addiction...I spent a lot of time "sick".

The tendency to either fake or exaggerate illness as an avoidance tactic did not go away just because I stopped taking drugs.

It seemed that anytime I had an extremely full day or I wasn't in that great of a mood, my brain would want me to pretend that I was sick as a way of getting out of life.

It took a lot of hard work but I can say that since entering into addiction recovery I have not given into these impulses and have not once been "sick" for the sake of laying low. I felt that I was able to modify my bad behaviors. But let me tell you what I am experiencing now...