Writing a Goodbye Letter to Addiction

How to Write a Farewell Letter To Your Addiction (and Make it Stick)

When you enter a treatment center looking to break free from the grip of addiction, there are multiple ways to enhance the recovery experience. Most envision a recovery facility for drugs or alcohol as solely meetings with counselors and groups with traditional evidence-based treatment methods.

While this makes up a portion of the Icarus Behavioral Health Idaho experience, we encourage clients to combat addiction in creative ways to manifest a holistic experience. One of the most inventive and healing ways to empower yourself during recovery is to write a goodbye letter to addiction.

At our addiction treatment center, we encourage our clients to craft a goodbye letter. However, most don’t know where to start or have challenges properly shaping this content. The best part is that there is no wrong way to craft a goodbye letter to your addiction.

In this article, we give you “dear addiction” ideas to help you put together an impactful, personal, and inspirational goodbye to the pain of addiction.

Why Write a Letter to My Addiction?

When faced with this task, most clients often ask, “Why would I write a letter to my addiction?” Most who accomplish writing their letter quickly discover how powerful this exercise can be. In the same manner that someone uses the power of manifestation, writing a “dear addiction” letter is a strong, actionable mental tool to help you speak recovery into existence.

In your mind, you can make up excuses for any action you’ve taken and run off a string of false promises to extend your love affair with your drug of choice. However, when we speak things out loud or take action by creating them as words on paper, we hold ourselves accountable for what we’ve decided.

Entering recovery can be the hardest thing you’ve ever faced. You’ll experience fear, anxiety, and even physical pain. This is a way of turning this pain into a creative outlet and an action you can take to demonstrate to family members that you’re serious about changing.

If you’ve heard of the process and wondered, “How can I write a letter to my addiction?”, the following section provides the tips you need to create a meaningful goodbye letter, helping to push all the pain that’s been weighing on you for quite some time.

The Best Tips for Crafting a Goodbye Letter to Drugs

Bringing your letter to life requires you to make a conscious effort to actually say goodbye and face the fear of a life without drugs. Because it’s all you’ve known for an extended period, saying goodbye might cause you to feel scared. Regardless of what you think in the moment, understand that you are in control of the direction you’re taking in life, taking that power back from drugs.

Shaping Your Subject Matter from the Start

From the very start, you want to take control of your letter’s pace and subject matter. Set the tone and decide what platform you’d like to speak from. Because you’re saying goodbye to drugs or alcohol, address the letter as if you’re talking directly to the substance that’s robbed you of your happiness, independence, and money.

Start With a Detailed Outline of What Substance Abuse Has Taken from Your Life

Many individuals in recovery will tell you that to recover from a drug, truly, you must learn to hate it. Diving into a detailed account of the things your addiction snatched from your life can help fuel the emotion you need to speak your truth. Some of the most common items that clients list as the consequences include:

• The loss of family
• Lost hope
• Losing a meaningful relationship
• Loss of your support system
• Being robbed of their joy
• Robbed you of your health, making you sick
• Transformed you into a thief, personally

Shape a Clear Beginning and Ending

Elaborate on the details that your drug and alcohol addiction brought into your life initially. Don’t hold back on being truthful about how significant your drug of choice was when you began using. Chronicle the lies you realized that addiction was blinding you from. Ultimately, you discovered how broken you were from drugs or alcohol, leaving you in a state of sorrow after you listened to all of the lies.

Express What Made You Seek Recovery

This is the part of the letter where you thank the things in your life that eventually made a difference in your past mistakes and explain how hard you’re working to get these things back. Many clients cite the desire to mend a relationship, patch things up with friends, right any wrong they made, or just enjoy the world again.

Elaborate On How Excited You Are to Break Free

Express your excitement for this new chapter in your life. Speak about how you’ve reached the point that drugs aren’t fun anymore, and the things you’re looking forward to in the future have zero to do with any chemical substances. Write about how you’re excited to return to your support system or have fun with your children again. Anything the future has in store for you that you missed during your addiction should be added in this part of the letter.

Wrap Your Letter Up

Bring your letter to an end by summarizing everything you’ve noted throughout the letter. Express your sentiment that you’re stronger because of everything that happened during your addiction, and how ultimately this experience will turn into a strength and not a weakness. Say one final goodbye, and finish this honest letter from a space of love, not bitterness.

When to Write a Goodbye Letter to Your Addiction

There are plenty of stages during your recovery that present a golden opportunity to write a goodbye letter to your addiction. At Icarus Behavioral Health in Idaho, we’ve found these turning points to present the most ideal opportunities to craft your letter:

• After exiting detox, getting over the physical portion of recovery marks a significant turning point in your journey to long-term recovery.
• During therapy. Making this testament with your counselors is a great way to demonstrate your willingness to continue making progress.

Say Goodbye to Your Addiction at Icarus Behavioral Health

At Icarus Behavioral Health in Idaho, we can help you through the toughest portion of recovery, from detox to inpatient, and even aftercare. We have a compassionate staff that’s ready to help you say goodbye to your addiction.

For more information on our services, contact a member of our admissions team confidentially today.