Among the many issues facing those who struggle in recovery against addiction, motivation is one of the greatest. How can you stay motivated when addiction itself seems to constantly sap away at your emotional strength, and leave you doubting yourself, anxious and bitter?
The Power of Purpose
Purpose carries with its unimaginable power. When we are filled with purpose, we can do anything – from the greatest of miracles to the worst of obscenities. We have created and toppled civilizations through purpose fought wars, discovered wondrous cures to nightmarish diseases, and even explored beyond the skies into space.
However, sadly, many people seem to find their purpose. They may be unclear of what they are meant to be doing, and they seek guidance – yet continue to struggle.
The question of purpose is ancient – but it is different from discovering the meaning of life. We will probably never be able to find a satisfying answer for the latter, but we can all strive to find our own answer for the former. Your purpose does not have to be singular – it does not have to be a definitive answer, a dedication to the bitter end. It can change, adapt, and evolve. In fact, it may have to, or else you might spend your entire life frustrated about the fact that you cannot seem to figure out what you should be doing.
When seeking motivation against addiction, purpose can act as the antithesis to what feeds an addiction. Addiction is the absence of purpose, filling a big personal void with pure chemical pleasure, feeding a coping mechanism that creates this vicious cycle. With purpose, you can deny your addiction, because often it will hinder your ability to perform whatever it is that matters most to you at the time.
Consider what drives you. Is it your studies? Your work? Your hobby? Your family? Find what matters most, and anchor yourself to it – for a time. If in time your purpose shifts, follow it.
The Little Things
Staying motivated in recovery is more than just fighting addiction. The grimy and gritty of addiction recovery is one thing – it is important to stick to your schedules, to attend your meetings, to meet up with your group, see your therapist, take your medication, fill out job applications, take on your daily responsibilities and fulfill the duties you’ve accepted in your post-rehab life – and it is also important to have fun.
If we fight addiction all day, that too will result in stress piling onto you, eating away at you and making your resolve – and your motivation – weaker. Now and again, we all must take a break and remember why we’re even deciding to struggle against diseases like an addiction – it’s to have the ability to enjoy the things in life that bring us the most joy, and cope with stress, but in a healthy way. Vacation time with the family, a date with a loved one, seeing the stars or watching the sunset, going to a concert, or partaking in any one of numerous possibilities for new, happy memories.
It is important to strike a balance in life between duty, responsibility, struggle, and the all-important aspect of fun. Enjoy a little comedy, a little recreation, some escapism. Whatever it is that stimulates you, be sure to build it into your schedule in a healthy way.
This is important for everyone who wants to avoid burnout but is especially important for those struggling to recover from addiction. Addiction can get much worse with the onset of chronic stress, and if you do not take the time to let loose every now and again, you might find yourself falling back on old habits. By having fun and finding new ways to enjoy yourself without the use of drugs or the alcohol, you will come to further bolster your motivation against addiction by realizing that you do not need it to take the edge off.
Learning to “Deny” the Addiction
This is not denying the existence of an addiction, but instead, starving it of its power. Like a personal beast, one way to metaphorically describe long-term recovery and sobriety is through starving your addiction. Addiction feeds – as a disease, it perpetuates itself with negativity, with nihilism and self-absorption, with a lack of purpose and disillusion. By denying your old addiction of all these things – by taking a firm stance and backing that up with every tool available to you, from the help of others to the power of purpose and accountability – you can effectively release your addiction into the past, a closed and ended chapter in the long history of your life, a period you’ll think back on without anger or unresolved rage, but solemn acceptance.
You cannot leave your addiction behind so long as it still has power over you, even in the passive form of regret, or shame. If you do not accept the fact that it is all right to have struggled with an addiction, then it will be a stain on your mind for the rest of your life. That is why many treatment centers implore patients to try and seek professional help, even after completing a residential treatment or long-term sobriety program. It is important to clear your conscience and come to terms with your past in addiction, if only to deny that addiction of any possible emotional fuel for a return.
At some point in time, when the changes made in your brain have passed, the controls are back in your hands and it is a matter of self-responsibility to keep fighting against any urge to withdraw back into old habits. Staying motivated is not just something important to do in the initial stages of recovery – take it as a lesson in life, that even without the addiction, the best way to consistently be happy is to find new goals, new ways to achieve progress in life, new ways to improve and move past negative emotions such regret, shame and rage.
With or without addiction, this is something we all struggle with. It is normal to fall into periods of depression, burnouts, times where the stress takes over and we give into habits and coping mechanisms that might be unhealthy or “bad”, but do their work immediately and take the edge off. Even in moments of relapse, long after the initial treatment, the true failure does not lie in the relapse itself, but in giving up due to it. The true challenge for all those struggling with recovery is not just staying sober after rehab, but to stay sober despite any relapses. If you keep fighting and starving your addiction, rather than accepting it as an inevitable part of you, there is always hope that you’ll reach a point where you can finally feel like you have put it all behind you.