One of our sessions focused on faith – now the faith they’re talking about isn’t necessarily in God. There are a dozen short sections to the lesson we discussed, so I’ll try to boil it down to the important parts. First is a list of Types of Faith. After establishing that I’ll write about the rest from a faith in God perspective because that, I believe, is important in recovery.
Types of Faith
- The individual has faith in their
own ability to achieve something. - A person can have faith in someone else to
help them, such as a doctor or therapist. - People can have faith in ideas.
- The individual has faith in God.
- People have faith in their religious beliefs.
- Faith can be inspired by other people,
such as when one in recovery sees
the progress others are making.
This lesson was written for those struggling with addiction, but it applies more broadly to anyone struggling with eating disorders, mental disorders, depression, anxiety, and even to someone that’s a new believer in Christ.
The next list was Reasons for Taking a Leap of Faith in Recovery.
- There may be no amount of evidence that one can see light at the end of the tunnel – overcoming addiction, managing eating disorders or depression, or even how a life of following Jesus is possible.
- If someone in any of these circumstances is cynical or suspicious of people, they’ll need to set aside that negativity to take a chance or leap of faith.
- Faith – confidence that life will improve – is necessary until a person’s self-esteem improves due to progress in recovery.
- A person in recovery needs to trust others to help them or they may not get the support they need.
Faith is closely related to having realistic expectations in recovery. It’s unreasonable that
once recovery begins life will be perfect as recovery is a long process. It takes time to
overcome or learn to 
manage difficulties
that resulted in a need for recovery. Faith,
then, allows a person to have hope that
life will get better while working toward
that goal, especially in the early days of
recovery which are the most turbulent.
It’s easy in the early days to question the
decision to begin recovery. It’s a tough
time. There’s emptiness left by activities
or thought processes given up, and until
new patterns are formed a person can
feel at odds with life. Again, faith that
life will get better allows one to continue
working on recovery instead of giving up.
Faith in God, his forgiveness, and the peace that follows can make the whole process easier. Understanding the love of God for us personally is sometimes the only way to move forward.
