Content
The costs I would say those are for somebody that is in very early recovery and hasn’t had some treatment …. As you deal with your problems, you develop new coping skills, which you can add to your “recovery toolbox.” As time passes, you will have a tool that is appropriate for nearly every occasion. At this point, you will have achieved serenity, and your life will become more manageable. This type of criticism is usually not a true reflection of what is happening because even someone who sits around all day might be motivated. The problem is not that they lack motivation per se, but that they are, instead, motivated to do what others would consider wrong. Therefore, you can define motivation as the driving force behind an action.
- However, there were general comments about how the size of one’s social network changed over time.
- More recently, Wilk and colleagues (1997) conducted a meta-analysis to explore the effectiveness of brief interventions with heavy drinkers.
- This approach assumes that the patient is responsible for changing his or her addictive behavior and recognizes ambivalence as a natural part of the process.
- When celebrating alone, you could treat yourself by ordering food from your favorite restaurant or making your favorite dessert.
Remember to take some time off every day to do something you enjoy. It can be easy to get caught up in everyday life’s busy routines, but if we don’t center ourselves and do things we enjoy, we can easily get overwhelmed and stressed out. https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/5-tips-of-how-to-maintain-recovery-motivation/ Something as simple as reading, journaling, meditating, praying, or exercise can give you relief and meaning during your journey to recovery. Keeping a personal record of your thoughts and feelings can be inspiring in many ways.
Overall views about motivation
When you start your recovery with unrealistic or unreasonable expectations, you are bound to be disappointed. You didn’t destroy your life overnight, so you’re not going to be able to clean it up overnight, either. You took a meaningful step by putting down the substance, but there is still much work to be done.
Memory has an odd effect on people who are recovering from an addiction, and it can cause them to lose their motivation to stay sober. Their new life is exciting, and the world appears full of possibilities. Even when the sober life is so much more rewarding than the life of the addict the individual can begin to take things for granted. Eventually their motivation to stay sober begins to wane, and the risk of relapse increases.
Maintain healthy sleep, eating, and exercise habits
Drug or alcohol use can damage many aspects of life, causing people to feel hopeless and dejected. Over time, substance use can cause mental health disorders, such as depression. There are two distinct types of motivation— intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. If someone acts because they feel it is the healthy or right thing to do, they are driven by intrinsic motivation.
An increasing number of treatment strategies and programs are being used to address the patients’ motivational needs. Some programs have established groups or initial program components to examine and increase motivation. Many substance abuse programs are incorporating MI techniques into their treatment repertoire, either by developing a separate motivational component or by incorporating those techniques into established treatments. Others are combining motivational interventions with cognitive-behavioral skills-based approaches and 12-step support group involvement. There are a number ways that peer dynamics within SLHs can facilitate motivation to maintain sobriety.
Realistic Expectations in Recovery
When we presented findings about ways the benefits operated differently for different groups (ie, interactions with 12-step involvement and size of one’s social network), participants mostly responded to the latter issue. The finding about differential effects of benefits for persons with high versus low 12-step involvement drifted into general discussions about how recovery through the 12-step program worked. There were also few reflections about why benefits would be more important for persons with larger social networks. However, there were interesting reflections about the overall finding that smaller social networks had better outcomes than large networks. Several participants felt that in early recovery, it was common to feel like you were friends with large numbers of fellow 12-step members.
It’s a safe space to unpack your thoughts and make sense of the chaos that often accompanies substance use. If you’re anything like me, that sounds like a pretty SOLID way to live your life.
