Staying Motivated to Stop the Addiction
It’s now a few weeks into the New Year. Are you keeping your resolution or is your motivation slipping? If it’s slipping and you find yourself either drinking, smoking pot, doing harder drugs or indulging with prescription drug medications brush yourself off and get your motivation back. Don’t beat yourself up. Just start a new resolution. It is early in the year so don’t feel you have to fall back into drug abuse or alcohol addiction.
Ok, how do you get your motivation back now that the company has gone, the winter is cold with storms, the boss is annoying, the family may be making demands on you and you are stressing out once again?
1) Make a specific goal. It sounds corny, but don’t have a general goal. Just really picture what you want. If you are cutting back on alcohol and have been able to use moderation in the past, then tell yourself you will Not drink during the week and will only have 1-2 beers on the weekend. If you know that you cannot do this due to the fact you drink too much and have NEVER had self-control, then don’t try this. Instead, give yourself a different goal that you will NOT drink and you will attend AA five times a week and call your sponsor. If you know that rehab is the best way for you to stop doing drugs or drinking, then look at a calendar and set it up. Make the call on Monday. Don’t put it off.
2) Visualize yourself thirty days from now going down the same path versus the new path. Really picture yourself in detail. Look at how your face will look without drinking or drugging. Think of your energy level. Think about what it will be like to not be avoiding people, making up lies, living in denial or saying things to avoid being confronted.