Drug addiction is not a matter of choice, but it is a matter of survival. Addiction recovery is not just about deciding not to follow an unhealthy lifestyle – it’s about prolonging your life in general, and making yours a happy one again.
But getting there – to the point where it seems possible to live without drugs again, and stay satisfied – is tough. It’s a long road, and not everyone makes it. However, there are many ways to ensure that you’ll stay on the right track, even if you fall off the horse now and again.
Before we can go into how to make your addiction recovery stick for the long-term and work on your sobriety, it’s important to first understand why addiction is so hard to beat; especially if you haven’t had to suffer through it.
Why Addiction Recovery Is So Difficult
Addiction is a combination of different physical and psychological symptoms, which appear in tandem but rarely in their entirety. Each case of addiction has its own unique factors, its own unique causes and inherent risks, and its own ideal method of treatment. Some people suffer from a highly emotional addiction, one where the issue lies more in their pre-existing mental condition rather than a neurological issue. Others suffer through an addiction that runs in the family – some alcoholics tend to have an inherent risk towards developing an addiction towards alcohol, and this risk is hereditary. Addiction recovery needs to be approached differently depending on the circumstance of the addiction in the first place.
There are different risk factors concretely tied to developing an addiction. While substance use does not necessitate any pre-existing conditions, and all addictive substances carry the inherent risk of creating a physical dependence, some people are at far more risk than others. Here are some of the more common risk factors:
Mental health disorders: Depression, anxiety, ADHD and post-traumatic stress are all tied to an increased risk of addiction. When coping with the massive stress tied to mental illness, many people see drugs as an effective short-term solution, despite their long-term consequences. There is also a higher risk of abusing medication.
Peer pressure: Teenagers are susceptible to this, as they are inherently less aware of risks and tend to ignore dangers in the face of high social rewards (i.e. fitting into a certain social circle).
Loneliness: A lack of personal connections with others can turn people towards drugs to escape many of the mental consequences of long-term loneliness, such as depression.
Family problems: Being on bad terms with your family tends to increase the risk of using drugs, due to a lack of support.
Genetics: Family history of addiction tends to correlate with a high risk of addiction, especially for specific substances.
Chronic illness: People struggling with chronic pain have a higher likelihood of becoming dependent on painkillers, especially due to the prevalence of opioid prescriptions in cases of chronic pain.
Each of these risk factors have their own hard counters – chronic illnesses can be addressed through alternative treatment methods, genetics can be used as a warning to avoid certain substances, families can be replaced by a strong network of life-long friendships, and dedicating yourself to being open and meeting more people can cure loneliness.
Even mental health issues can be addressed with modern-day psychotherapy and other forms of therapy – and in many cases of addiction, they must be addressed to truly help someone overcome their drug dependence. Besides treatment, much of which takes place during rehab, the hardest part of addiction is sticking to sobriety long after you’re done with a residential program or outpatient treatment program.
This process, often hardest in its “early recovery” stage, requires a system of commitment and a proper understanding of how to steal back the reward system of your brain after addiction hijacks it.
The Science of Commitment
Psychological health is really all about learning how your mind works, and then tricking it into working as well as possible. As humans, we’re subject to all sorts of psychological problems – we tend to avoid pain and suffering for good reasons, but that also means we at times rob ourselves of opportunities to grow by avoiding rejection, and instead suffer the ire of loneliness. Sometimes we experience so much pain and misery that we develop a trauma.
Sometimes, all our ills compound into a dependence on the immense short-term high of a drug. Our minds begin to rely on things like alcohol, cocaine and opioids to forget about all the things that worry us and instead just be satisfied, or even happy. Our mind becomes committed to drugs – in our brains, drugs rise to the top of the agenda and take over everything else.
Taking that drive back to develop a commitment towards something else isn’t quite so easy, because drugs come with an inherent abnormally high pleasure factor. There’s nothing else on the planet as immediately satisfying as a dangerous drug. So, you must utilize some discipline to get to the point where the commitment really sticks and you can begin your addiction recovery.
Commitment in the scientific sense, that is, sticking to one partner and making things work, is part of the essential toolkit we humans carry around to make and raise babies. We commit to a partnership at least long enough to ensure that our offspring survive in this world, and that takes years. This is because ultimately, it’s worth it – it’s natural, and we’re inclined to do so.
Trick Yourself into Sobriety
The trick is not committing yourself to sobriety. Sobriety isn’t fun by nature. We’re not inclined to deny ourselves the pleasure of drugs (that’s the whole problem). It can be fun, but not because of what it is – rather, because of what you can make of it. Instead of making a commitment to sobriety, make a commitment to something you really enjoy. Pick any hobby you feel passionate about, and use it as a replacement for drugs – turn to it in times of stress, hone your craft or your ability, get better and better and use it to release stress when things get a little much during addiction recovery.
The take-away point is this: learn not to focus solely on your sobriety.
Instead, learn to focus on living again. Drugs rob you of the ability to really live, to feel and love and focus on others and the things you enjoy the most. They make life dull and boring, they take out all the things that make it worth living. You must bring those things back through your addiction recovery, and remind yourself of how awesome sobriety can be, not how awesome it’s supposed to be from the get-go (you may be disappointed).