Recovery is a multi-stage journey. I, and many of the other addicts that I have known, experienced an initial battle with temptation and eventually a victory over it, only to feel new battles springing up around us some time later. After the initial success, we tend to experience setbacks, or new addictions forming off to the side, and it makes us doubt the control we thought we had gained. Most great battles in recovery seem to be followed by a sequel.

As I have reflected on this phenomenon, the thought has occurred to me that the more you press against your foe, delving further into the heart of enemy territory, the more unpredictable and treacherous the terrain becomes. The initial push and triumph in recovery feels fantastic, but that is nothing more than breaking through the front lines. Yes, it is a victory, but you have yet to capture the capitol. Or, to shift metaphors, perhaps you have chased the bear from your home, but in so doing you have followed it into its lair where greater challenges await.

Virtually every addict finds that his bad behavior comes about by the following sequence:

1. He has many hurts and frustrations in his life
2. Those hurts and frustrations put him into a perpetually dejection and faithless state
3. While depressed and faithless, temptation easily has its way with him

The first fight for recovery has to do with short-circuiting this pattern. The addict learns how to manage or mitigate his pain, removing unnecessary afflictions, ending negative relationships, and stopping behaviors that add stress. Less frustration means less dejection, and less dejection makes him stronger against temptation.

And this is all well and good, but the solution will last only as long as his management and mitigation efforts are effective. Sooner or later life will throw something new and unexpected, as it always does, and all his perceived progress will be undone. He will find out that his sobriety is dependent on life being easy, and no one’s life is always easy.

So the addict must go further into enemy territory, deeper into the heart of the problem. Sooner or later he has to learn to break the connection between the pain of life and becoming dejected. He has to learn how to be peaceful and content, no matter the simultaneous pain. This is a very difficult thing to do, of course, but if he can succeed in this critical battle, then the world will no longer have any power over him. He will have captured the heart of the enemy’s power, and the war will be over.