When we feel good enough, nothing can bring us down. Being sufficiently confident lets you brush off negative comments and superficial critiques and move on with your life without a bruised ego or deep conflicting emotions. But when you yourself become your own worst critic, and you can’t find a positive bone in your body, then every comment turns into an assault on your person, and the compliments fall on deaf ears.
Your self-worth is more than just an opinion, it’s an integral part of your mood, personality, and your path through life. A low self-worth will lead to a more negative outlook on life, a lack of confidence or passion, and general discontent and unhappiness.
And when you’re tackling an addiction and looking to get sober, then a low self-worth can make you doubt whether you will ever get better, flushing your chances of a recovery down the drain. Being confident in your future is a big part of having the energy and the will to see a treatment through to the end, while learning important lessons along the way. Yet with self-doubt in the picture, it can be difficult to learn anything at all, or make any progress on your addiction.
To overcome self-doubt about getting sober and staying sober, it’s important to see how doubt and addiction are entwined, to give you a better idea of what you’re fighting for mentally.
How Addiction and Doubt are Entwined
Addiction is not the root of all evil, but it can contribute to feelings of anxiety, depression, and low self-confidence. Blame, shame and denial are often integral to people’s experiences with addiction, fighting hard to retain a sense of control over themselves while the cravings grow too strong to resist.
This betrayal, the fight between a person’s will and their body and brain, leads to a loss of trust in themselves, and that is often accompanied by a lack of confidence in the future.
To properly overcome addiction, it is important to regain that confidence, that self-trust – that self-love. Self-love is often noted to be important in the fight against addiction because if you don’t value yourself, you won’t be able to give the treatment your all. It’s not about being selfish – it’s about caring for your wellbeing.
Believe in Others If Not Yourself
For many, trusting oneself is a big step that is not easily taken. An alternative first step to begin with is to find someone who trusts you and supports you despite your own doubts – it could be a family member, or a partner. Whoever they are, rely on their trust for you, and their confidence in your ability to get better, until your own confidence can stand on its own two feet.
Lean on Someone’s Shoulder
When just believing in other people’s words isn’t enough, you’ll need to make sure that even if your sense of self completely erodes, you have people out there to help catch you when you fall. Self-doubt eventually paves the way to a relapse, and to prevent that, having outside forces ready to keep you clean and out of trouble.
Sober living homes are perfect for this, as they let you enter a completely drug-free environment to focus solely on your recovery, while continuing to live a normal life filled with responsibilities, obligations, and goals. Find either a special companion, sponsor, or clinic to call and go to when the need arises.
Reconcile with Family
Being surrounded by loved ones can help you drown out the voices of self-doubt and bring some much-needed banter and laughs into your life. But to do so, you need to reconcile with your family. If you left on bad terms because of your own mistakes, then attempting to bury the hatchet and recommit to a better relationship can bring many meaningful connections back into your life.
If, however, you left due to harsh judgments and an unhealthy family environment, then it may be time to create a new family by pulling together a group of your best friends – or working instead on making new friends.
The Silver Lining
Overcoming addiction is by no means a pleasant experience, so it’s easy to see how it promotes negativity. Often, people who struggle with addiction find themselves trapped in a cycle between trying to get out, and falling back in. As the cycle progresses, the doubt grows, and hope fades.
Do not let it fade completely. Grasp onto any silver lining – any at all – and do not let go. When there’s nothing left to grasp onto, then it’s time to call for help, until you begin to see that there’s more ahead than just the struggle.
Yes, many people fight their addiction for years. But they make progress along the way, making new friends, discovering new hobbies, maybe even getting a better job and exploring new fun places. Sobriety is about opening your life up to countless positive possibilities – it’s not about doom and gloom. Do not succumb to the idea that the path towards a happy sober life is suffering and atoning for your addiction – treatment is meant to be a positive experience, giving new insight into who you are, and letting you put the bad memories behind you.
By holding onto the positive things in life, you will make better progress in your recovery. There is a science to it – psychiatrists have discovered that thoughts, feelings and actions are inexplicably linked, and if you can direct your thoughts and actions towards positivity, your mood will invariably become better. This is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, which involves working with a trained and professional therapist to teach your mind to be more positive, and thus be a little happier as well.
Start by trying to consciously catch yourself when you begin to think something negative. Whenever you feel a negative thought encroaching, try and think of something positive as well. While you may be physically and mentally struggling with cravings, consider the fact that you’re sober, and your future is bright as long as you hold on for a while longer.
With negative thinking comes blame and shame, and with that, a growing sense of doubt in yourself and tomorrow. Try not to let the negativity of addiction pull you down with it – stay above it, and turn towards your friends and family when you start to feel yourself slipping.