Addiction is not just a matter of emotion, calculated risk factors, or even pure coincidence. People can develop addictions in any walks of life, from contact with any addictive substance. Some people are particularly predisposed towards becoming alcoholics or life-long chain-smokers – others went through a cocaine-heavy phase in their youth and voluntarily became stone cold sober, simply “growing out” of the trend.
A true addiction is not something you grow out of, or stop indulging in only because the peer pressure disappears – it is a little more complicated than that, and there is no definite way to tell when and why someone might develop an addiction. True, there are risk factors – childhood violence, parental neglect, emotional abuse, poverty – but someone with an otherwise healthy and happy life could develop a case of severe alcoholism from something as mundane as hereditary circumstance.
So while the origin of addiction may be complex and individual, addiction itself is superficially similar in terms of treatment – in order to move into recovery in an addiction, you need a powerful reason to do so (the motivation and will to stop) and you need to cut the addiction off from what it craves the most: emotional turmoil.
Addiction Feeds on Stress
Regardless of whether your addiction is a product of emotional instability or the cause of it, almost any case of substance abuse leads to emotional scarring. It is not easy or fun to slip down the path of addiction. By the time someone realizes they are becoming slaves to a behavior or substance, it may be after it is already too late and much damage has been done.
Only when we begin to lose our livelihood and control over our actions, do we realize how far we have fallen and bottoms hit, pain setting in. Perhaps feelings of guilt, anger, shame, pressure and fear. These feelings compound and may force you deeper into the warm embrace of the only thing in sight – the addiction itself.
Overcoming something so seductive requires a strong mental anchor – and alternative ways to manage and reduce stress, in order to kill the urge to use again.
Emotions Are Half the Battle
Addiction is a brain disease, a neurological phenomenon, but it is also a matter of psychology. Overcoming addiction means exploring your emotions, dealing with them, learning to manage them and draw out the positive ones, working through negative ones.
That is why therapy is a powerful tool, especially early on. Outpatient treatment facilities, sober living communities, treatment centers – these are all excellent ways to seek out professional help and learn how to actively manage your thoughts and feelings to avoid addiction.
Tips for the Early Days
The first few weeks of recovery after the initial withdrawal period – with and without residential treatment – can be brutal from an emotional standpoint. Early recovery is marked by high highs, and low lows – emotional turmoil and depressive episodes highlighted by fear of the inability to escape the tempting grasp of addiction, and stages of mania and the pure unadulterated bliss of being free from the oppression of drugs.
Coasting through this period is not easy in the least. There is a reason relapses happen quite often – most of the time, even – and there is a reason they happen quite early in recovery. After a certain amount of time spent addicted, it takes a while to readjust both emotionally and psychologically to life without drugs. Being sober can be hard – and swinging between the emotional zenith and nadir is temporary, albeit a hugely challenging aspect of early sobriety.
However, there is a lot you can do to mitigate the difficulties of early sobriety and the emotional stress it carries with it – concrete steps towards managing your stress; avoiding the dangerous “pink cloud” and its feelings of unabashed optimism, and the potential emotional crash that follows.
Speak with other recovering addicts.
Stick to your obligations and your schedules.
Create a tangible distance between yourself and your old self.
Get solid ground under your feet.
First, tackle the prospect of meeting up and regularly staying in touch with others struggling with addiction recovery. It is not an easy path to walk, and everyone who can use the help would appreciate it, which can help give you a sense of purpose and meaning very early on. Seeing others succeed in reaching their goals and actively pursue long-term sobriety despite setbacks or circumstances can also inspire you to be more proactive and optimistic in your own endeavors towards controlling your emotions and staying on-path towards long-term sobriety.
Another extremely important point is to maintain a solid and strict routine, even if it is a minimal one, such as having a handful of daily obligations like searching for a job, walking the dogs or keeping the house clean. The beginning of recovery is highlighted by change – so having something constant and dependable in your life is important. You do not have to enslave yourself to routine for the rest of forever – but in the beginning, it is a great tool to keep you busy, improve your self-discipline and help you maintain a more comfortable life filled with responsibilities later.
Success is Important
Responsibilities are the best way towards making a difference between yourself as a recovering addict, and your former self. You want to be able to look in the mirror and realize how far you have come, what you have achieved for yourself in the process, and make the absolute decision that you like yourself more now than ever before. Start small, with little goals such as improving your self-care, learning a new skill, becoming more social or getting a new job and perhaps your first promotion. Every step towards something you want will increase your self-esteem, improve how you feel about yourself and eliminate the doubt and fear that helped feed your addiction to begin with.
Finally, getting solid feet under yourself is important for early recovery. Start with the basics – get a place to stay, a way to make money and keep yourself busy, and become acquainted with other recovering addicts. By forming the biggest changes in your life as quickly as possible, you create a solid foundation onto which to build the rest of your recovery goals.
While there is an obvious truth to saying that recovery is a lifelong journey, never forget this memorable little quote: it gets easier. “Every day it gets a little easier. But you have to do it every day. That is the hard part.”