Recovering from drug addiction is a long-term journey requiring commitment for it to work. Drugs such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, ecstasy, and sometimes prescription drugs contain potent substances; when you start taking them, it becomes difficult to break away from them. They usually affect your mental, physical, and emotional health. Over time, they alter your life, and you may lose your family, friends, or job.
These are some of the crucial reasons you need to get committed to completing drug addiction treatment. Remember you can always recover no matter how many relapses you’ve undergone. They’re only hiccups on your way to betterment. With that in mind, here are 11 tips to guide you on how you can stay committed to drug treatment and recovery:
Pages of Contents
1.Complete Your Rehab
Overcoming your drug addictions requires you to commit to treatment and recovery. Remember, recovery isn’t a one-day affair, especially if your body has developed a dependence on drugs. Drugs can alter your brain activities such that if you try rehabilitation, you experience intense withdrawal symptoms that may take you back to addiction. For this reason, you must attend reliable drug addiction treatment centers for full recovery.
Centers have the experience to enable you to gain your sobriety and get to the root cause of your addictions. Sometimes, addictions result from traumas, peer influence, low self-esteem, and depression, which require in-depth treatment rather than just stopping the drug intake. Facilities like Sandstone will help you get better through their qualified personnel who are well versed in different types of therapies, whether it’s individual psychotherapy, family therapy, or intensive group therapy.
You’ll also have help even as you detoxify which often causes excruciating pain. Eventually, you’ll leave the facility healthy and cured. But remember, all of these are achievable through deliberate dedication to the process.
2.Know Your Triggers
Triggers can considerably hinder your recovery journey. Part of staying committed requires you to know all the potential urges you may face when trying to better yourself, whether it’s emotional constraints or environmental scenarios. Some of them are:
- Stress and depression
- Relationship challenges
- Bars and social areas
- Prescription drugs
- Financial problems
- Peer pressure
- Anxiety
These are some of the possible reasons you may resort to using drugs. So, knowing them enables you to have an easier time avoiding them. In rehab, your therapist may suggest trying out a few simple exercises when facing challenges, such as learning to relax to decrease the urge to use drugs.
3.Take Responsibility For The Flaws In Your Recovery
You’re often tempted to give up when you commit a mistake during your rehabilitation process. Sometimes, you may feel like there’s no need to struggle to get well as you’ll always go back to drugs. However, if you take responsibility, you’ll bounce back even after facing challenges. Therefore, commit to following through with the plan you’ve created.
Remember, no one says the journey is a simple process. Relapsing is a reality expected with addiction. Therefore, if you relapse, acknowledge why it happened and try to devise measures to prevent a similar occurrence. In this sense, addressing your flaws becomes a learning experience, not a sign of defeat.
4.Form Healthy Routines And Patterns
Using drugs sometimes results in unhealthy routines and patterns. They usually come about when you’re idle. To gain your sobriety, think about meaningful activities you can engage in daily. You can create new healthy routines by trying new hobbies like swimming, hiking, skiing, dancing, or swimming. They can keep you occupied for hours. When you’re done, your only thought is how to replenish the energy you’ve used through eating or drinking water.
Furthermore, as you’re still recovering, attend support groups within your locality, which provides support to keep you away from relapsing. You’ll have a new routine with new people you can hang out with, with the same purpose as yours, helping you to get better. With such groups, you can also speak to confidants when the craving to do drugs creeps in, and they’ll help you overcome the urge.
5.Recognize Relapse Signs
Relapse usually comes when you’re not prepared for it; by the time you’re back to your senses, you realize you’ve already made a mistake. Even if you’re very careful, it may creep back in without your anticipation. Thus, you must know the possible signs that may bring about a relapse. Here are some of them:
- Self-isolation
- Mood swings
- Occasional stress and depression
- Irritable thinking
- Avoiding meetings
- Hanging out with friends you used to do drugs with
- Thinking of drugs as a possible solution for your dilemma
All of these signs are quickly noticeable. So, have them at your fingertips for easy recognition. In the end, you’ll stay committed to the rehabilitation process without resorting to self-harm.
6.Set Up Smaller Goals
To maintain a commitment toward your recovery, avoid making too big plans. As much as you may feel you have enough energy or strength to achieve such goals, you should take it one day at a time. Getting through a full recovery is complex enough, and creating unattainable goals isn’t advisable. So, to achieve a successful recovery, make small and specific goals you can accomplish.
As time goes by, you may try to achieve more goals. Smaller goals are usually achievable, motivating you to proceed to other goals. Creating long-term, bigger goals may make you frustrated once you realize how challenging it is to achieve them. Indeed, you can quickly forget about your resolve. Such inconsistency may make you give up quickly, and you won’t see if there’s anything worth appreciating.
However, that doesn’t mean you should entirely ditch long-term goals. As much as they may be more challenging to accomplish, they’re essential. State what you want to achieve in one or two years. But then, couple this with smaller month-to-month objectives to make the process easy and seamless.
You can also get help from your therapist or reliable friends and family to create your long-term goal. As time goes by, you’ll always look forward to improving because of the commitments you made.
7.Create A Healthy Lifestyle
Committing to a healthy lifestyle is an ideal way to cure drug addiction. It helps boost your emotional, physical, and mental health. Firstly, drug use leads to raging emotional breakdowns, which usually drives people away from you. It usually leads to depression and loneliness.
Secondly, drug use usually depletes your body of all the nutrients and minerals it needs to perform its daily functions. Your organs, like the liver, kidneys, pancreas, and lungs, may also suffer significant damage. So, if you maintain a well-balanced diet rich in proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins, you’ll regain your physical health.
Lastly, drug use can change your brain activities. You may make irrational decisions, develop insomnia, and sometimes become violent. So, during recovery, you should get enough sleep and practice yoga and meditation to learn to relax. Together with undertaking physical activities, you’ll have a long and healthy life. But all these achievements require you to devote your time to doing them daily so that the recovery process can work.
8.Seek Support
Through support, you can stay dedicated to your treatment and recovery process. So, keep your family and friends close to you during such times. They’re the closest people who motivate you to recover. You can always be free and speak to them when you feel the urge to use drugs. They also help you walk your journey to completion. Alternatively, you can seek support from a therapist who helps you learn new coping skills.
9.Keep A Journal
Journaling is another excellent approach to staying committed to your recovery. When you note down the challenges and accomplishments you’ve made, you’re more encouraged to do your best to get better. You can also resort to writing to vent out the feelings you’ve bottled up instead of taking drugs. Some of the benefits you can receive from journaling are as follows:
- Journaling assists you with handling stress and anxiety.
- It helps you do self-reflection.
- It helps you identify and learn ways to cope with your triggers.
10.Set Reminders On Why Sobriety Is Important
You can enhance your devotion to recovery by reminding yourself why you’ve decided to overcome your addiction. In this sense, you look at the list you’ve made every time you feel like taking drugs. Listing these reasons helps keep your focus on getting better no matter how tempting the urge may be. Some of them are:
- It’d help if you got your family and friends’ trust back.
- It takes a lot of money to purchase drugs.
- You’d like to regain your mental, emotional, and physical health back.
- You’d like to get your job back.
- Build a good character and self-image.
Most of these may seem easy and straightforward to accomplish, but you still need commitment even if you’re faced with challenges.
Conclusion
Committing to drug addiction treatment and recovery requires time and effort. It isn’t something you can just brush through. Remember, drug use impairs your mental health and deteriorates physical health. Getting back all that you’ve lost requires you to dedicate your time and set ground rules and goals to help guide you to the right path. You can begin by attending therapy, support groups, and other activities outside treatment to fast-track the recovery journey. Over time, you’ll recover your lost relationships, get your job back, and live a long healthy life.
