Self-Appraisal in Addiction Recovery: An Integral Part of Healing

By: A Forever Recovery

Apr 13, 2015

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Self-Appraisal in Addiction Recovery: An Integral Part of Healing

A Forever Recovery offers a program to help our patients take a moral reasoning approach to recovery from addiction. Whatever approach they need for wholeness, whether it is a cognitive, spiritual, or fellowship approach, we offer them a path that will lead them home. While many patients recognize the value and strength available through a faith-based track, others prefer the self-help track, and we support them throughout the process. One of the most beneficial aspects of our program utilizes Self-Appraisal in addiction recovery to help patients understand their addiction and how to stay clean.

Self-Appraisal in Addiction Recovery Unlocks Potential

One integral part of the healing process is using Self-Appraisal, an all-encompassing, personal assessment. This is an assignment to help the patient look at past experiences that made them the person they are, and an examination of social factors that helped shape their individual humanity. Failure to face these life experiences can often block the patient’s ability to confront issues in the lives that prevent them from unlocking their true potential. A Forever Recovery uses the process of Self-Appraisal in addiction recovery to examine the barriers that prevent our patients from moving forward and gives them the opportunity to put negatives behind them.

The Self-Appraisal is designed to honestly cover damaged family relationships, abuses, neglect, family substance use, roles and identity, personal biases, religion, and cultural differences.

The Self-Appraisal personal assessment is divided into four sections:

First, the patient looks at their early childhood and the experiences and family relationships that were part of it. This is a very integral part of the recovery process, as the building blocks of their life, both physically and emotionally, were laid here.
Next, the Self-Appraisal causes the patient to examine their adolescence. Friendships and family dynamics during this period are explored.
Then the patient looks at their adulthood, with all the choices and relationships this time encompasses.
Lastly, the patient’s drug history is explored.

Patients are required to write out answers covering these four areas: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and drug history. As topics are uncovered that are tender to deal with, the patient elaborates on them in writing.

Not only negative topics are addressed. The patient, through Self-Appraisal in addiction recovery, also shares their accomplishments in life, and explores positive life experiences, and positive aspects of their personality as well. This is an essential step to understanding the whole person so that healing may take place.

Learning to Let Go of the Past

The patient is encouraged to establish a positive relationship with a staff member he or she feels comfortable around. This staff member shares the important step of “letting go” of the past as the patient discusses their findings through the Self-Appraisal personal assessment. Once the history has been shared, the patient destroys the personal assessment through a burning ceremony, thus symbolically closing that chapter of their life, to allow fresh healing to take place.

Once the patient’s personal content of the Self-Appraisal assessment is “let go,” the patient is ready for the Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT). Our goal at A Forever Recovery is to see our patients heal not only from addiction but to be whole physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. During Moral Reconation Therapy, the patient will continue the healing process.