If you’re trying to stay sober, then you’re likely gathering a number of tools to stay relaxed, focused, and centered on your sobriety. In fact, one primary set of tools all recovering addicts need to learn is how to respond to stress. Frequently, it is stress that prompts a desire to drink or use drugs. It is often emotional, physical, financial, or psychological stress that causes us to turn to substances.
For instance, let’s say you recently experienced a death in your family. The pain of the loss might be too much to bear and you may turn to drinking as a way to escape the emotional pain. In other cases, perhaps you’re fearful about your financial situation and the inability to pay rent, buy food, or provide or your children. This situation can be a source of significant stress. Wanting to escape this psychological pain may be the reason to turn to drinking or drugs. But when you’re in recovery, turning to substances is no longer an option when faced with stress. Instead, you’ve got to have better, healthier ways to respond to stress.
One way to begin to respond to stress better is to get to know the sources of stress. Identify exactly what types of situations make you feel tense. You may also have to pinpoint the thoughts and feelings that create stress. You might have experiences that feel stressful, but you’re not quite sure why. You may need to think about that experience and identify the parts of that situation to help pinpoint the source of your stress.
Here are a list of questions to consider to help you identify your unique sources of stress:
- What are you doing?
- Where are you?
- Who are you with?
- What time of the day is it?
- What are the circumstances?
- How are you feeling emotionally?
- What thoughts are you having?
- What are you doing to cope with the stress – if anything?
- How are you feeling physically?
In addition to identifying a specific situation and its circumstances to identify sources of stress, you may want to look for patterns of stress in your life. For instance, perhaps you get stressed whenever there’s a sudden change in plans. Perhaps the uncertainty of what you thought was going to happen is a source of anxiety. This and other patterns of stress might not be obvious at first. Yet, by focusing closely on the situations in your life, you may find unanticipated patterns.
Our stress patterns aren’t always obvious to us. But by journaling and documenting the details of a stressful moment, you can slowly become more and more aware of what makes you feel uncomfortable and what doesn’t.
Of course, once you know what triggers stress in you, you can then make changes accordingly. In some cases, you may be able to prevent the stress by modifying your behaviors, or even avoiding the situation, if necessary. In other cases, you may not be able to avoid the stress, but you can strengthen your response to stress with tools like deep breathing and other relaxation exercises.
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