A Self Directed Program for Addiction Recovery Part 3

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A Self Directed Program for Addiction Recovery Part 3

This is part three in a series that provides a template for self-directed addiction recovery. You will find the earlier posts in this series here;

A Self Directed Program for Addiction Recovery Part 1

A Self Directed Program for Addiction Recovery Part 2

Strategies and Destination

We’ve been trying to build a recovery life-raft and so far we’ve examined two elements of this craft; motive and principles. We are now going to think about your destination in recovery and your strategies for getting there.

Deciding on Your Destination

It is a good idea to have some type of overall goal for your new life. This is the general direction in which you want things to move. The destination does not need to be set in stone, as your ideas about what you want out of life are likely to change over time. It is important that this initial goal is both desirable and within your power to reach. It is likely that your motive and destination are going to be closely related, and you certainly don’t want to choose a destination that will undermine your motive for getting sober.

One of the benefits of setting a goal at this stage is that it will give you something against which to judge your progress. There will almost certainly be many positive changes occurring right from the start of your break from addiction, but it can be easy for you to miss this evidence of your progress. The nice thing about setting a goal is that you should be able to see if you are moving closer towards it, and that will give you a definite sign that your life is going in the right direction.

Let’s look at an example of a suitable destination. My motive for quitting addiction was to develop a real sense of inner-peace and contentment without the need to use alcohol or any mind-altering chemical. This meant that my destination in recovery was to experience increasing inner-peace and contentment. I wasn’t expecting that there would be constant upward movement towards this goal – I knew there to be ups and downs along the way – but I did expect that there would be evidence of some progress when I looked back on my experiences over a reasonable time period.

One of the problems with setting this goal at the start of your new life is that you may not be completely clear about what you want. Addiction can make us have a very low opinion of what is possible or it can push us into the world of delusional aspirations. Don’t worry about this too much now, you will be able to change your destination to something more suitable later on. The main thing is that you have something to aim for from the beginning.

Strategies for Recovery

When you first break away from addiction, there will be a period of adjustment. Things may get a bit bumpy for awhile, and if you are not prepared for what lies ahead it will be difficult to stay afloat. It is unlikely that you will be able to prepare for all the challenges you might face, but you can certainly prepare for the ones that you are most likely to run into.

Your goal here is to develop as many strategies as you can so that you can face this new life with confidence. The aim of these strategies is to help you reach your destination (see above), and this means being able to overcome any problem you are likely to face. It is sort of like setting out for an expedition to climb Mount Everest, you don’t want to weigh yourself down with unnecessary junk, but you also want to have all the items you are likely to need to reach the summit. You will be able to develop new strategies along the way, but it is best if you do not have to do this too much– remember what we said earlier about how our best thinking might not be available to us in the middle of a crisis.

The way to develop strategies is to write down the problem clearly, and then figure out the solution that will allow you to overcome this problem. This isn’t about writing things down that sound sensible or wise – you only want solutions that you feel confident are going to work for you. So let’s look at an example:

Problem: I may have cravings to use alcohol or drugs.

Solution: I will remind myself that relapse isn’t an option, and I’ll use a mindfulness technique (objectively examine my thoughts) to see how this craving can’t harm me.

If you are worried that your solution might not be enough to work every time, you can add additional solutions as a back-up plan.

Putting Together Your Recovery Program

Now that we’ve examined the different elements of your recovery program, it is time to begin putting it all together. The way you do this is similar to how you might put together a jigsaw puzzle. The different elements feed into each other. The first thing you will want to do is find your motive for quitting. This will then provide you with your first couple of principles. Let’s see how this works in practice:

If my motivation is, ‘I am going to give up alcohol forever so that I can enjoy inner-peace and contentment’. This will provide me with my first two principles –

- I can give up alcohol forever

- If I give up alcohol forever, it will mean that I can begin working towards finding inner-peace and contentment.

I will have to check to make sure that each of these principles are solid enough to be used. I do this by asking the three questions we talked about in the last post (Is it necessary? Is it reasonable? Is it clear?). I also need to make certain that it doesn’t contradict any of the principles that are already there. Once I begin adding my strategies, this will mean that I’ll have to create additional principles to cover these – remember, unless you have adopted it as a principle, it doesn’t exist in your program.

As you put your program together, you have to make sure that everything fits nicely together. There should be no contradictions between one part of your program and another part. This requirement is nothing to do with being fussy – it is all to do with encouraging you to be as clear as possible. You need to keep working away at your program until you feel satisfied that it will get you through early recovery. Remember though, you only need something basic for now. The clock is ticking and you want to get your life-craft into the waters of your new life as soon as possible.

In part 4 of these series we will look more closely at how you can use this self-directed template for recovery.