IT’S LIKE WE’RE ALL NEWCOMERS…AGAIN! –

May 27, 2021 – “There’s a sense of anticipatory anxiety around re-navigating and reintegrating  —  an excitement and trepidation at the same time, and the fears around, ‘Will I be able to cope?’” said psychologist John Kelly, the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of Massachusetts General Hospital Recovery Research Institute.

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While some people may argue that addiction and reentry anxiety do not share the same level of urgency, “There are always more commonalities between people than there are differences,” says Nzinga Harrison, a psychiatrist, addiction medicine physician, and co-founder of Eleanor Health and the “In Recovery” podcast. She said that as we collectively adjust to the reopening of society, people in recovery have a lot of expertise to offer.

 Here are some recovery approaches that can help if you are experiencing mixed feelings about returning to pre-pandemic activities. Acceptance is a prerequisite for making change. “Acceptance recognizes what is,” said Princess Drake, a mental health practitioner at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Drake works in Hazelden’s residential program, where talking about reintegrating into life after a significant change is routine. One of the tenets of recovery is that acceptance doesn’t mean that one likes or agrees with what is but that one acknowledges facts.

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