Self-confidence is said to be the key to many things. We’re told repeatedly that you must be self-confident to nail that job interview, be self-confident when asking that cute guy or girl out, be confident in your choices as a consumer and customer, show self-confidence when alone and traveling – the list goes on and on. Self confidence is also important to help recovering addicts maintain sobriety.
It’s solid advice. Self-confidence is encouraging in any situation: if one person is unsure, the other person’s confidence might help them feel more secure. However, when it comes to addiction treatment, self-confidence is about more than just looking sure of yourself. It’s about negotiating with your own mind and battling the effects of addiction with positive stubbornness. Here’s why self-confidence really matters when you’re trying to stay sober – and more importantly, here’s how to cultivate and maintain self-confidence.
Rehab Is The First Step
Sobriety can start off as the beginning of something new and wonderful, or like hell on Earth. Some people feel invigorated, full of a lust for life and ready for everything – others just want to use again as soon as possible. For both, it can be hard to maintain sobriety in the early stages. Emotions ebb and flow, rising and falling like a rollercoaster.
After the initial treatment period – especially after rehab – efforts to maintain sobriety becomes harder and harder. Relapse rates are as high as 60 percent for people in treatment, and overcoming that reality can be very difficult after all the elation of early sobriety that some experience. However, rehab is only the first step. The rest of the journey matters even more. Trying to maintain sobriety is not just about not using – it’s about learning how to enjoy life and live it without drugs. And that’s impossible without some form of confidence.
How Low Self-Esteem Feeds Addiction
Having a low self-esteem feeds the negative thinking that fuels drug use, and keeps an emotional addiction alive and kicking. By calling yourself inadequate, useless and all kinds of derogatory terms, you’re effectively justifying your own drug use, since it’s “the only thing that brings happiness”.
This sort of self-doubt creates a vicious cycle, wherein your negative self-image leads you further down a path of depression and self-destructive behavior, addiction included.
Building Self-Confidence In Sobriety
Self-confidence is troublesomely mistaken for boastfulness by some people, and worse yet, there are those who might mistake overcompensation for “confidence”. The difference between them is honesty. The first step to really being confident is being entirely honest with yourself. You must acknowledge what you can’t do – and, importantly, acknowledge what you can do. Yes, maybe you’re a terrible dancer – but you’re also a pretty good singer. Sure, you might not have the best looks, but maybe people often comment on your hair, or your smile, or the way you dress. Focus on honestly taking stock of yourself and deciding what you like and don’t like.
For anyone struggling with addiction, one of your major personal dislikes is most likely going to be your substance abuse. And that’s a start – but it’s important to go further from there and work to maintain sobriety.
Once you know what you’re working with, set goals. Don’t like yourself physically? Consider exercises to help with that. You don’t have to go to the gym if being in public embarrasses you: start at home, and use online resources to inform yourself. Even someone with “below average” looks will feel far more comfortable in their skin if they can be proud of their strength and fitness. That can go a long way towards helping you really feel better about yourself.
If there’s a hobby you’d like to pursue, then do so – especially if it involves other people. Competitions, cooperation and hobbyist interactions can be a fantastic way to improve, express yourself, and become confident in your growing abilities as an artist, player, athlete or participant of some other kind. No matter what you do: don’t shy away from challenge.
Start small – you don’t have to intimidate yourself with the pressure of changing everything at once. Make changes to yourself in order of magnitude, and you’ll start to feel more confident the more comfortable you feel being yourself.
How To Maintain Sobriety And Overcome Setbacks
Some might say that setbacks are inevitable in recovery. Setbacks do not just refer to relapses, but moments wherein we fail to stick to our personal code. Maybe we catch ourselves thinking about using again. Maybe we’re at the supermarket and find ourselves lingering far too long in the alcohol section. Or maybe we’re throwing furtive looks over to the lotto station, thinking about it.
Indeed, it’s common to see people criticize themselves and berate themselves for not being good enough while they struggle to stay sober. We all make mistakes, but it’s the mistakes we make when trying to stay clean that anger us the most.
A crucial step to successful recovery is learning to overcome those setbacks. That does not just mean stopping setbacks, but it more importantly means having the emotional strength to see past your mistake and look onwards towards a new chance to try again.
It’s especially hard not to dwell on relapses. A relapse can be a devastating moment in a person’s recovery, and it’s sadly quite common – as much as 60 percent of people struggling to maintain sobriety will relapse over the course of their treatment. However, what most people have a challenging time with is understanding that a relapse doesn’t mean a program has failed. Instead, a relapse can mean that you’re going through an unexpectedly tough time now, or it might be the side-effect of meeting someone or remembering something from your past that triggered a powerful craving.
Failure is when you overdose. There really are only two options when struggling with addiction, and those two options are to sober up or not sober up. And if you keep on trying, you will get there, even if it takes the help of a sober living community to get you there.
The reality is that no one wants to stay addicted, and very few people really must deal with the challenges of addiction. In the end it’s a battle between whether you want to use again, or live. If you choose to live, then consider a relapse a sign that you must keep fighting the urges, and dedicate yourself to whatever treatment you have found works best for you. Addiction treatment sadly doesn’t work as quickly as addiction itself – there is a lot of discipline involved, and self-confidence is critical to justifying all the time and effort you spend fighting for your own life.