Often, addiction is the result of feeling out of control in your own life, but long-term treatment can help. As the stress of too many problems leaves you feeling cornered, it can seem as though substance abuse is the only way to escape those problems. As a result of using drugs or alcohol, you end up hiding from those problems and that causes them to get worse as a result of not having been resolved. Before long, addiction has become another one of those problems as you realize your addiction has spun your life even further out of control. When you feel the need to use more frequently and in greater doses, more of the obligations in your life aren’t met. This leaves you feeling as though your life is getting more out of control day by day.
However, even when this is true, it’s not true that you’re helpless to stop this downward spiral. While it won’t be easy, you can gain control of your life by taking one step at a time. For someone struggling with addiction, the first step is to learn how to live clean and sober. As you begin a long-term addiction treatment program, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a broad range of therapies. Many of your beginning sessions will encourage you to recognize the mistakes you made in the past, so you can accept them. This provides a learning opportunity in that you’ll analyze your mistakes with a therapist or in group counseling to see why you made those choices.
This will help you recognize a pattern of behavior that caused events in your life to get beyond your control. Your recovery will depend on your ability to make rational decisions based on logic rather than emotions, which means you’ll be able to prevent your life from getting beyond your control in the future. Counseling will also help you establish a road map for your future, ensuring you won’t take on another aimless existence. When you do have specific goals and strategies for obtaining them, you’ll be more motivated to keep events in your control as much as possible.
The Beginning Steps in Making a Plan
The first step in creating a plan for your future beyond your long-term treatment program is to look at your past to find things you want to change. This can involve character traits that you dislike about yourself as well as practical matters in your life, such as rebuilding your credit. Once you make a list of things you want to change, you can create a strategy for making each one of those changes. This will involve looking inward to discover the values and talents you possess. In making any change, either internally or externally, you’ll have to rely on your own abilities to make those changes.
When you compare your values and talents against the things you want to change, you can create a more actionable strategy. While this may seem like a challenging process, your addiction counselors, therapists, and fellow recovering addicts will help you follow a path towards greater control. Counseling and therapy will teach you healthier and more effective ways of managing challenges in your life, so you won’t feel the need to turn to self-destructive behaviors. Using drugs or alcohol to escape the problems in your life aren’t effective coping mechanisms, so it’s important to learn a variety of healthy coping mechanisms in rehab treatment.
You’ll learn how to deal with internal triggers, such as anxiety or depressive episodes, and you’ll learn to develop rational strategies for tackling each real world problem you face. By the time you leave a long-term treatment facility, you’ll have the tools you need to tackle any challenges life throws at you. You’ll learn to develop positive traits and skills, so obtaining and keeping a worthwhile job won’t be out of your reach. You’ll also benefit from a brighter and more positive outlook on life, which will help you maintain healthier personal relationships.
Through the therapeutic help you receive in rehab, you’ll be better able to control the events in your life that are manageable. There still may be events that you can’t control, but, even when a tragedy strikes, the coping skills you learned in treatment will help you get through those situations without relapsing. If you’re ready to gain better control over your life, call us at 833-820-2922. Our counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer your questions about substance abuse treatment. This one phone call is the first step in helping you live a clean lifestyle that will be back under your own control.