Many codependents ask: is the dependent sober now? It's been a week now, or a month now. But he (or she) is changing somehow not quickly enough, not well enough. We probably need to be patient and wait. But when will this time come for him to become calmer, less irritable, more sane, more reliable, etc.? Probably, this will simply come with a longer period of recovery (has anyone already realized that there is a difference in what “term of sobriety” and “term of recovery” are, which we already wrote about in the previous post)? But how long should we wait for this recovery? Where are these deadlines? Alas, there are no clear deadlines here. The criterion that a person has begun to recover is changes. Changes in his behavior, in his thinking, in his reaction to certain events. This will definitely happen if a person recovers. But you also need to understand this thing: there is a biological aspect of the disease. We know that the disease is chemical dependence, bio-psycho-socio-spiritual. And the physiological, biological aspect is present in it first of all. Some people think: well, he hasn’t drunk for a month, or smoked, or hasn’t sniffed anything - what’s wrong with him, since all the substances have left him? But you need to understand that the bio-balance of hormones is disturbed; at some point they stopped working as they should. Namely: when an ordinary person is sad, or has had a misfortune, or some event has happened in the world, he does not use chemicals, and he produces natural hormones: endorphins, dopamines, serotonins, oxytocins, norepinephrines - there are many of them. And we must understand that this balance is disrupted by consumption. Sometimes very damaged. And restoring this balance will take time multiplied by effort. Recovery is work. But, “if you take nine pregnant women, the child will not be born in a month.” And, if we are talking about an addicted person, then we need to take into account that different people may have different types of substances that he used, and, accordingly, recovery may take different times: for an alcoholic it is one thing, for a person who used cannabinoids it is another, Amphetamine addicts have theirs, opiate addicts also have theirs, and if we talk about today’s designer drugs, which are called “salts,” then this is generally an unexplored area. But, if we are now turning to codependents, we need to be patient and begin to recover ourselves. The question usually arises here: how does it “get well on your own”? Am I sick or what? Well, let’s type in the same Google or Yandex the word “codependency” - there is an answer there what it is. The answer is simple: it is a disease very similar to addiction. And, by the way, here it becomes clear what is behind the very question “how long to wait for this recovery.” Essentially, this means that the person asking it is dependent on the object of his codependency. What is very important to him is when he, this object - son, daughter, husband, wife, mother, father, someone else - when he (or she) will recover. It’s worth turning this question to yourself: what’s happening to me, why is this happening? Do I myself recognize this, my codependency as a disease? Or what I’m reading now makes me think: “Come on! What nonsense! Did you come up with this here!”? But then maybe it’s worth not immediately running to a psychologist, but just going to a group of codependents and seeing what it’s like. Maybe it’s worth going a couple of times. And then accept this as your own problem, and then maybe you will still need the help of a psychologist? Konstantin BelousovKonstantin Belousov, Contacts +79117057115 (WhatsApp) +7 (812) 389-62-04 More information about him - follow the link: https:/ /lhouse.info/himicheskaya-zavisimostAnd also in our accounts of the Lighthouse psychological center on social networks