Stress, pressure, painful emotions, and trauma are a common occurrence that occurs to people. Someone who does not know how to cope with these occurrences healthily might resort to substance abuse for relief. This explains why people use drugs or alcohol, which provides an instant and temporal escape from the situation.
Drugs and alcohol are abusive substances that flood the brain with pleasure chemicals (dopamine) and activate the pleasure center in the process. However, the sad part is that this euphoria is temporal, and the person finds himself going back to the substance as a means of escape, which could lead to addiction.
The addict many times has a false assumption that they can only find relief after using the substance. However, breaking away from the substance of abuse is possible and takes more than willpower. Some addicts have relapsed several times after deciding to be sober.
This article will shed light on simple tips with which an addict can cope with recovery.
1.  Know Your Triggers
One of the essential tips to be successful with recovery is to know what triggers your addiction. It can be a thing, place, people, events, emotions, thoughts, feelings, and circumstances that trigger cravings for the abused substance. An idea of your risk will guide you in planning how to avoid them.
A few trigger people need to note are:
- Distress in the environment
- Troubles in marriage
- Job stress
- General stress
- Environmental cues that bring cravings
2.  Focus on Your Finances
It is pretty common for people that were active in their addiction or substance abuse to have issues staying on top of their finances. This makes it difficult to effectively manage money, stay in a job, and other responsibilities.
Substance abuse and narcotics might be against the workplace rule, and your employer might call for impromptu on site drug testing to rid their workplace of people on drugs. Thinking about the impact this might have on your finances can go a long way to keep you on top of your quest for recovery.
Photo by Francesca Zama from Pexels
3.  Subscribe to a Support Group
Another tip to support yourself on your recovery journey is AA and NA (Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous) meetings. The meeting consists of people in similar struggles striving to break free from addiction shackles.
The group is essential because it allows you to learn from others’ struggle, journey, and the tactics they have used to cope with recovery and resist relapse.
Besides the support from such groups, individual counseling is a terrific idea as well. This involves talking to a counselor in which the intention is not to judge but help with insight into the addiction, dealing with triggers and lean further into coping mechanisms. One can also subscribe to the local community groups as a form of support.
4. Consider Healthy Relaxation Mechanism
The primary reason people resort to substance abuse is to escape a difficult situation and relax. This means that it serves as a means to relieve tension. In recovery, however, one needs to change to positive and healthy means to ease tension.
Everyone gets stressed and tense at times, but our coping mechanism differs. Addicts believe that they must take their substance of abuse before they can relax. Trying to recover from addiction without subscribing to a healthy coping mechanism is a recipe for disaster, as tension will build up until they can no longer hold it.
This is where relaxation comes in because it is a vital part of the recovery journey. Everyone needs to look for a healthy relaxation method that works for them. It can be as simple as taking a walk, a warm and long bath, acupuncture, getting a massage, mindfulness, meditation, etc. Attempting any of the recommended methods will help, and make sure you do something daily to relax. It can help reduce your reliance on substance abuse, according to research.
5. Stay Away from Old Routine.
There might be a bar on the route you take while coming back from work where you branch to have a bottle and “drown your sorrow” after a hard day’s job. Recovery will involve considering an alternative route when going home. In other words, one of the most crucial elements of recovery is making considerable changes to former routine, lifestyle, friends, etc., that triggers the substance abuse.
There will be obvious changes you will need to make as soon as possible. For instance, you need to get rid of every bottle of alcohol from your house and avoid hanging around people that supply you with the stash. This is a no brainer.
Conclusion
The road to recovery is hard and full of potholes. This, however, does not mean you cannot be successful on the journey. There are healthy coping mechanisms with which you can have a successful recovery.
This article has shed light on five points that can help you achieve success once you make up your mind to go sober. Bear in mind that it takes more than willpower to achieve success with recovery.
Featured Image by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash
