“I’m not telling you it is going to be easy. I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it.”—Anonymous
Habits Can Make or Break You.
Many people have addictions. Some addictions involve abusing substances like drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or food. Other addictions are behavioral, such as gambling, sex, shopping, and exercise.
Addiction can take over your life and negatively impact your relationships, finances, and job.
No matter how many times you’ve tried to quit, change is possible. It’s definitely not hopeless.
Here are some effective ways to help you recover from any addiction.
Start with Baby Steps.
It’s better to set realistic goals that you can’t fail at rather than ambitious aims or quitting cold turkey. Break your plan for recovery down into small, achievable steps. If it’s too radical a change, you’re likely to relapse. Instead of trying to quit smoking the first day, wean yourself to a certain number of cigarettes a day. Continue to gradually taper your smoking.
New habits down happen overnight. Start with small steps and build on them as they take hold. Eventually these patterns develop into a habit and a new way of living.
Identify and Remove Triggers.
Pinpoint who or what triggers you to want to indulge in your addiction. Remove addictive substances from your home, work and car. It may be necessary to refrain from relationships with certain people which revolve around addictive behaviors.
It’s much easier to stop drinking if there is no alcohol around or you’re not hanging out at the bar with your drinking buddies. Make it easier on yourself by removing temptations from your life.
Use Activity for Distraction.
Distract yourself with movement and activity. Call a friend, read, watch TV, walk at a local park, engage in an old or new hobby.
Replace your old habit with a new one. Rather than smoke a cigarette after dinner, walk around the block instead.
Recognize and Address Your Emotions.
Generally, addictions are about self-medicating to cope with pain. It’s a way of numbing to underlying issues. Addictions can cover up feelings of depression, loneliness, fear, past trauma, and hopelessness. It’s important to recognize what’s behind your addiction and resolve it.
Although it may not always feel like it, having a wide range of emotions is a blessing we experience on Earth. On the other side of the veil, we do not feel emotions such as sadness, jealousy, anger, depression, frustration . . . The wider spectrum of emotions available to us in this Earth school are necessary components to the curriculum. They help us grow and evolve faster as souls.
Emotions are a normal part of human life. Find ways to address your feelings rather than suppress or numb them.
You Grow the Most Through Adversity.
Recognize your soul’s intention concerning your addiction. Your soul may use addiction as a method for growth. It’s possible you deliberately incarnated into a family with the genetic predisposition to a specific addiction.
Your soul may choose for you to experience powerlessness through addiction to opioids. Your soul’s journey may involve obesity to help you find greater self-love despite cultural beliefs. Being an alcoholic might be a way to clear karma by feeling compassion, rather than judgment, for those who struggle with alcoholism. The more evolved the soul, the tougher their learning opportunities.
Your soul wanted you to experience addiction but now heal it.
Release the harshness toward yourself about your addiction. Be gentle and love yourself through this entire process. Loving yourself is the ultimate lesson here. Will you love yourself enough to stop abusing yourself? Will you love your body enough to nurture it rather than mistreat it? Will you love yourself too much to give into this habit with temporary pleasure that makes you feel worse later?
Relapses Are Not Failures.
A relapse is not a failure. It’s part of the process. Learn from it. One of the most important aspects to overcoming an addiction is to understand why you slipped. Recognize what triggered the relapse and what can you do differently moving forward.
“Recovery is about progression not perfection.”—Unknown
Everyone relapses at some point. Get right back on track. Don’t use it as an excuse to fall back into your old addictive behaviors.
It takes time to form new habits that stick. Some days will be harder than others. The more you practice these healthier new habits, the stronger they become. Eventually it will get easier and become second nature.
No matter how many times you’ve tried and failed in the past, recovery is possible. You’re so worth it.
