One of the biggest things I hear from people who are trying to stop drinking, using drugs, gambling, or another addictive behavior is:

“I don’t want recovery to become my whole life.”

They picture going to meetings every day forever. Every conversation becomes about cravings, triggers, relapse prevention, accountability and how their sobriety is going.

Basically, they don’t want to spend the rest of their life being known as the person with the addiction.

And I get that.

The whole point of recovery is to get your life back. It’s not supposed to become another thing that consumes your entire life.

But there’s a difference between not wanting recovery to define you and trying to move past recovery before you’ve built enough stability to actually move forward.

Why You Might Be Ready to “Move On” Before Your Family Is

Sometimes when someone says, “I don’t want recovery to be my whole life,” what they really mean is:

I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

I don’t want people c...