The Life Changing Necessity of Addiction Recovery

If you have been drawn to this article because you or someone close to you has recently left treatment for Addiction, then I hope you find some useful support here.

Maybe you have already embarked upon your own recovery journey after being in treatment or undergoing a home detox, and you are now realising how tough personal recovery is, alone and without the encouragement of a peer group or a personal mentor.

Perhaps you are just beginning to consider recovery from drug or alcohol addiction…. As you have made your way onto this page, I hope this information will inspire you to reach out for the help you need in regaining your life, free from the compelling influence of whatever drug you have been using.  You may already have spoken with your doctor about the type of detox you will need and if not, this is a crucial first step to plan for carefully.

At this point, let’s assume if you need a detox, that this has been achieved and you are now confronted with the enormous task of learning to live everyday life in a new way, an existence no longer propped up by substance of some kind.  Given the clarity that detox may well have bestowed upon you as well as the inspiration and motivation you might have initiated within Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous or Cocaine Anonymous , there is still the matter of a vital requirement to foster enduring life change.  Most probably, part of you accepts this whilst another does not.  Some of you is likely to be determined to master a new life of sobriety and some of you may be struggling with urges for the old… Wherever you are at, realising that you CAN take some control over your life, is going to be important motivation and encouragement.

A sense of “can do” achieved through simple everyday tasks like following a plan for meditation or nutritional eating, exercising or reading for example, can help you to feel increasingly more able to master your addiction.  Taking action whether you feel like it or not, is a crucial part of recovery.  In fact, it is a fundamental step of achieving many different types of goals:

Imagine a friend of yours tells you that he or she has decided to take part in the London marathon next year because it has always been a personal desire and now that this friend is approaching 40, he or she wants to undertake a significant achievement.   How might you respond?  You may offer words of encouragement like….”good on you, go for it, I’m behind you all the way? 

But what if this friend is more inclined towards the sofa than a running track or the gym in his or her spare time?  No amount of “good intention” nor any volume of “words of encouragement” will make the slightest difference.  The ONLY way this friend is going to achieve his or her goal is by taking ACTION, going beyond thoughts and intentions into lived experience of effort.  On some days this is going to feel much harder than on other days but what is important is the OVERALL effort towards the goal in question.  Effort on good days + effort on bad days = progress towards goal.   

Maybe you are sensing a parallel with recovery from your own addiction – something that might feel as enormous as a marathon might seem to someone unaccustomed to exercising.   Daunting as it may seem right now, your continued actions are going to be like an energy that can drive vital change, change of unhealthy, unhelpful and harmful habits that will otherwise steal away days, months and years of precious living time.  Remember this important equation:

Effort on good days + effort on bad days = progress towards your goal

Obviously on good days, things are going to be flowing well and you’ll probably find these days more or less “effort-less” so you may like to think about these days as if they are helping to build a savings account.  On these days, you’ll be building more than average energy within your “recovery savings account” so that on bad days, you can worry less about “building” and focus upon “holding on” to what you have already built.  These days may be incredibly testing and demanding and yet these are the days that probably count the most towards ongoing recovery, despite producing less.  These are the days when “old ways” are really being challenged as you find the will to dig deep and resist being pulled backwards into old habits.

To help yourself grow towards your goal and drive through addictive urges, you may find that a daily plan of action provides an important focus for you to follow:  Here are some things you might like to include in your plan:

1. FOOD: – treat it like medicine as taken wisely it has the ability to promote well-being in terms of emotional stability and good levels of energy.  A nutrient dense diet is invaluable and food can genuinely make you feel “better.”
2. MOVEMENT:  – don’t stay indoors for a whole day, walk around the area you live, find the local library or go to a fellowship meeting.  If you do stay indoors, make sure you get up often and move around and avoid sitting or lying in one position for a long time.
3. OTHER PEOPLE: – be mindful of who you spend time with because you will both influence others and be influenced by them.  In the book “A General Theory of Love,” authors,  Thomas Lewis, M.D, Fari Amini, M.D. and Richard Lannon, M.D., describe how the brain is influenced by the brains of those we become close to.    You might like to consider or draw out on paper, what people are influencing you in your life and whether recovery might call for some changes…
4. YOU: – spend time reflecting on yourself and imagine how you want your life to be. Imagination can be surprisingly important in helping to boost mood and enhance motivation.   A simple skill to boost your mood is to try “half smiling” from DBT or Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.  In this skill, you simply focus on your mouth and gently allow the corners to turn upwards. which sends a positive message to your mind.  If you practice this, you may find it begins to lift your sense of positivity and you can use your imagination to feel increasingly happier, on a particular day.  For example, if you try “half smiling” and it seems to be working for you, try closing your eyes and imagine being somewhere idyllic, perhaps with a person you love nearby, feeling comfortably in your body, warm, settled, satisfied in what you are doing whether this is reading or listening to music or just daydreaming……………..

Counselling coaching can support you with specific skills from a range of different therapy models such as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT); Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT); Transactional Analysis (TA); Mindfulness or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which also aligns with the 12 step model in promoting the value of powerlessness, open-mindedness and willingness, as you work and live recovery.