Building confidence in recovery is essential to feeling purposeful in pursuing recovery long term. Long term abstinence is the ideal goal of all recovery.
Participate in self-care: Addiction becomes the solution for most of life’s problems when you are addicted. The way you take care of yourself is by giving yourself the highly anticipated experience of intoxication on your personal substance of choice. Self-care is broad term in recovery used to describe the different activities and behaviors which make you feel most at ease and taken care of. Each person’s self-care regimen will differ. What a bubble bath will do for one person, it will not do for another. Not all self-care is a matter of luxuriating. Maintaining order and responsibility for areas of life which would otherwise cause stress is also self-care.
Find new pleasures: There is no greater fear in recovery than the fear of never being able to enjoy your life again. To people who have not lived with a chemical addiction to drugs and alcohol, it seems like a dramatic tale to tell oneself. For those whose brains have undergone the chemical alterations caused by drugs and alcohol, it is not far-fetched. Addiction is a disease of pleasure, obsession, and craving. The brain becomes convinced that drugs and alcohol are the only source of satisfying pleasure- even after the pleasurable effects of drugs and alcohol become hard to obtain through use. Your confidence in your recovery will waiver if you don’t find new ways to enjoy your time. Explore new pleasures by playing with life. Try new hobbies, watch a new genre of movies, pick up a new exercise routine, take up journaling or art. The more you experiment with life instead of chemical substances the more you will learn that life clean and sober is pleasurable too.
Be of service: Addicts and alcoholics tend to be lacking in the personal department of self-worth. The pervasive shame and stigma of addiction emphasizes what is likely an already low sense of self-esteem. Coming into recovery, addicts and alcoholics are told that one day their story will help other people. At the time, there is little to believe about that statement because life feels less than inspiring. Over time, there is more understanding. Getting through the struggles of recovery and learning to live sober one day at a time is a story worth telling- a story that millions desperately need to hear.
Castle Craig’s programmes for addiction and alcoholism help patients regain optimum health of mind, body, and spirit. Participants in our programs learn to how to build a life of successful recovery for long term abstinence. Call our 24 hour free confidential phone-line for more information: 01721 546 263. From outside the UK please call: +44 808 271 7500
