For patients and family members, addiction is a tough nut to crack. But there is help in the form of group therapy sessions at centers like the outpatient treatment Delray Beach as well as articles you can find online. This particular article will serve as a guide and give you some ideas on different tools and skills you can use in order to curb and keep your urges at bay.
- Create a New Life For Yourself
The patterns that we go through in life can determine the structural habits we develop on a day to day basis. If the habits are not ideal, they can, unfortunately, result in circular loops that feed off of one another in a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads us back to what we were trying to escape from in the first place. Since this is the case, it is important for us to take a step back and look at what we are doing in the first place to truly diagnose the situation. From this vantage point, we can change a few behaviors that can get us out of major daily ruts.
- Avoid HALT
The acronym HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. When we find ourselves at any of these situations, our brain picks up on the lack of proper dopamine chemicals and we get that all-too-familiar urge to use again. Avoid this by getting enough sleep, eating at proper times and making sure you are going outside enough and socializing with the right people. Additionally, picking up new practices like yoga and meditation can work as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they require you to go to a class and interact with others. On the other hand, they chill you out so you prevent fits of anger that can lead back to using.
- Honesty is the Best Policy
As cliche as it sounds, the truth in this statement takes full shape when you admit the problem. Drug use causes us to lie about our issues and problems. We all like to go about on a daily basis as if we don’t have any problems but the truth of the matter is that everyone, from the Queen of England to your local car repairman has problems. The best thing we can do is openly discuss the issue with someone that you love and trust. Doing this allows us to get the so-called “monkey” off our back and breathe in a sigh of relief with the additional weight gone. While this isn’t a cure-all for addiction, it can be helpful to relay your troubles to someone else who is open and listening.
Even if you don’t have access to the outpatient treatment Delray Beach center, you can use these three tools as a starting point to begin again and move forward with your life.
