The idea of forgiveness can stir up a lot of emotions in a person but for someone who is struggling with an addiction, forgiveness can be a heavy topic. If you are a victim of substance addiction seeking help with addiction recovery, you must come to the realization that forgiveness is a key step in the recovery process. You must learn to forgive yourself, forgive others and you must seek forgiveness from those you have wronged to be able to move forward in your treatment. 

Forgiveness is an effort made to let go of resentment, anger and pain from someone who has hurt or wronged you. These emotions put your stress levels on high alert and that can lead to health problems such as heart attacks, autoimmune diseases and higher levels of anxiety and depression. Letting go of these emotions allows a victim to feel free and move on with their addiction recovery in a more peaceful manner.

Typically a person navigating through the struggle of addiction is also dealing with the difficult emotions of guilt and shame. The guilt makes you believe that you do not deserve any good in life and shame makes you want to push the wrongdoing away like it never happened. These negative emotions hinder the recovery process, and while it may be hard to forget what has happened in the past, forgiving yourself allows for a smoother recovery process.