Help! I Self Medicate with Alcohol and Other Drugs of Abuse
If you are stuck in a cycle where you self medicate with alcohol or other drugs or abuse, and you need help, then here are my step by step suggestions for you:
ONE – Ask for help from someone that you trust.
This is the most important thing and it is really the first step that will kick off your new life in the right direction. Anything other than asking for help is probably not going to create significant change in your life.
Why is this? Because when we try to do this on our own (give up drugs and alcohol), we tend to sabotage our own efforts.
Remember that you have likely already tried many times to control your drug and alcohol intake, or at least to curtail it. Nothing has ultimately worked for you thus far. And this is proof enough that you need outside help, you need direction, you need guidance, you need someone who can tell you how to recover.
If you ask for help, then this is a genuine admission that you need this direction in your life. It is a signal that you have stopped manipulating and that you are ready for real change.
TWO – Follow through and take the advice you are given.
If all you do is ask for help and then go back to your old ways of manipulating and trying to control the situation, then you are NOT going to recover.
The only way to be successful in early recovery is to let go completely. Let go of what?
The need for control. You have to surrender fully to the idea that you cannot run your own life right now.
Some day in the future you will be able to do so again. But right now you need direction if you are going to learn how to stay clean and sober.
You may not be eager to take the advice you are given when you finally surrender and ask for help. But it is almost always the best idea to take the advice anyway, ride it out, and see where it gets you. It is almost always better than your own ideas about how to live, especially when you first get clean and sober.
For example, maybe you don’t like 12 step meetings, and the advice you are given is to go to a rehab where they have you attend AA and NA meetings every day. My advice: just go with it. Go to rehab. Even if the meetings are not your thing, you can still benefit from treatment.
Nothing will be perfect. There is no “perfect” rehab. Take what you can get and just go with the flow, let the details work themselves out later.
If you have truly surrendered to your addiction then it does not matter much what kind of help you get or where you go to rehab. Anything you do will be successful.
On the other hand, if you are still stuck in denial, then nothing will work, and nothing will be good enough for you. Everything will be wrong, nobody will be able to give you the help that you need, and so on. You will resist recovery, because you are not ready yet.
THREE – Start creating a new life with positive action.
There is a bit of a contradiction here but it is really all in the timing.
First, you need to surrender, and take direction. You don’t know how to live, and you need to be told how to stay clean and sober.
But at some point, this has to change. You no longer need to be spoon fed this information. Now, you need to create for yourself. Now, you need to start seeking personal growth, achieving new things, reaching personal goals, and giving back and helping people to reach THEIR potential.
The 12 step program mirrors this idea with the twelfth step and helping others and giving back.
But of course, so many people in recovery fail to do this. So many people get stuck in “dependence on meetings” rather than pushing themselves to really grow.
So if you are stuck in a cycle of self medicating, you need to do the following 3 things:
* Ask for help.
* Follow through and take direction.
* Start building a new life for yourself and help others.
If you do those 3 things, you can stay clean and sober.
Recommended Reading
Call Today
866-211-5538
24 Hour Treatment
