The programme is suggested. That means I can adopt it or disregard it as I see fit. The desire to adopt the programme must come from within. It is not up to other people to persuade me to adopt it. The decision must be mine.
However, the fact that it is suggested does not mean that my choice to adopt or not adopt the programme is free of consequences. If I apply the programme, I will recover. If I do not, I will not.
The positioning of the programme as 'suggested' merely indicates who makes the decision as to whether I will adopt it. It therefore signifies my own responsibility for my own recovery. It does not means that the options open to me are like sweets in a confectioner's; I am not basking in the luxury of free choice.
Given the gravity of the responsibility, it is not a decision that should be made either with excessive haste or with excessive languor, and certainly not one that I can defer or dismiss in a cavalier manner without risking grave consequences.
This is freedom in the sense of personal responsibility, therefore, not freedom in the sense of consumer choice. The right to reject the programme is not an indulgence to be relished. I am free to refrain from wearing a seat belt; I am free to eat raw shellfish; I am free to go in the sun without applying sun cream. These are substantial questions of well-being and even survival. There is neither dignity nor sense, therefore, in rejecting what is suggested on the basis of some misconstrued notion of self-determination or personal autonomy.
Wisely following a suggestion where to do otherwise would be reckless represents not an abrogation of responsibility but the proper discharge of it, not the admission I cannot think for myself but the proof that I can, not the loss of autonomy but its assertion.