Lifestyle Tips: Different Ways of Overcoming An Addiction Problem

Addiction is a chronic condition in which a person depends on drugs or other behavioral activities like sex, gambling, eating habits, smoking, and more.

Not only does it affect mental health but hinders physical growth. Quitting an addiction is a real challenge, but it’s a treatable condition. It requires many attempts and some people experience severe withdrawal symptoms like mood changes, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts. However, with the right support and guidelines, you can overcome this challenging phase.

In this article, we will share a few tips that will help you overcome an addiction and live a healthy life.

Take a Big Step

Taking the initiative is the most challenging step. Making a decision is difficult because you get worried about how you will handle the withdrawal symptoms or manage without that indiscretion. List the benefits and drawbacks of quitting a bad habit and consider how it will improve your emotional health.

Setting goals can help you concentrate on the things that matter most. You can add productive goals to your list,  like learning a new language, losing weight, or spending time with your children or pets. Remove addictive drugs from your house and get rid of triggers that can lead you to relapse.

Seek Professional Support

Loneliness makes overcoming an addiction more difficult. Lack of communication during the quitting process increases stress and relapse chances, so you need to be close to your friends and family. You can also consult with professional doctors or enroll yourself in rehabilitation programs to manage withdrawal symptoms. If faith plays a large role in your life, then you should research facilities that offer specific programs that align with your belief system. For example, if you’re Jewish, you might try to learn more about their Jewish rehab program to improve your lifestyle and relationships. Underlying conditions like anxiety and depression make rehabilitation more difficult. Healthcare professionals are supportive while dealing with these difficulties.

Get Medical Treatment

Stress, frustration, and anxiety are the common withdrawal symptoms so you can get medical help to minimize the effects of each. Behavioral therapies help people improve their tolerance to drug withdrawal symptoms. The following are a few behavioral therapies that might be beneficial for you:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy: a psychological therapy that aims to change negative thinking patterns. CBT focuses on triggers that lead to addiction. It helps people observe their thoughts and convert them into more positive emotions.
• Motivational enhancement therapy: MET is used to increase the desire to quit an addiction. 
• Mindfulness therapy: this cognitive therapy creates a state of calmness by reducing anxiety. It makes a person start noticing the numerous beautiful experiences that happen in everyday life, understanding what they miss out on when reliant on addictive substances. 

Medication can be used to relieve withdrawal symptoms, support patients in continuing their treatment, and avoid relapse. Consult a doctor to decide what kind of medication is required for your addiction. There are many drug rehabilitation programs. Some patients need 24 hours to stay in rehabilitation training centers for a few months and some require partial hospitalization of 7 to 8 hours per day. 

Control Triggers and Drug Cravings

Getting sober is the beginning of your rehabilitation. The connections in your brain that alter when you’re an addict require time to restore. Avoid people, places, and circumstances that make you feel the temptation to use drugs, as it will help support your ongoing recovery. Spending time with positive people who are not involved in your addiction can help you to stay motivated. 

Exercise generates endorphins, which improve your mood and change your physiological feelings, making it simpler to divert your attention away from your addiction. Start doing exercise daily even if you feel tired. It’s a great way to overcome cravings. Music therapy can also help you reduce cravings by distracting you from your addiction and calming the physical sensations of cravings.

Preventing Relapse

Relapse is common after rehabilitation which can be discouraging, but it doesn’t imply that therapy has failed. There are multiple trigger factors that lead to relapse including stress, emotional situations, negative friends, or addiction reminders. Relapses can be harmful or even fatal. If you have gone through withdrawal symptoms, your tolerance to the drug will be lower than it was before you quit, which increases your chance of dying from an overdose. 

Determining your relapse’s cause is one of the most crucial steps in beating an addiction. Use behavioral therapies, and consult your doctor again to prevent overdose of drugs.

Addiction can affect every aspect of your life for the worse. However, following the right guidelines and adopting a healthy lifestyle can help improve your health and mental status so you can live a healthy life. Do not be ashamed of your past addictions, move forward to change your future.