It is not easy to battle an addiction and achieve abstinence. It may be even harder to maintain it. Drug and alcohol addiction is considered to be a chronic disease and recovery is a process. Therefore, relapsing is not only possible, but likely. Relapses to substances don\u2019t come out of the blue. Relapses are the consequences of faulty thinking.<\/p>\n
Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy in which negative patterns of thought are challenged in order to alter unwanted behavior patterns and emotional distress. This was developed by Aaron Beck in the 1960’s with a premise that thoughts, feelings and behavior are all connected and that individuals can overcome difficulties by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s take a look at faulty thinking that can lead to relapse. A group of people in a recovery support group identified the thoughts they had prior to relapsing and considered what a more reasonable thought would be.
\n\u25cf Some have thought \u2018I don\u2019t care anymore\u2019. A more reasonable thought would be \u2018I\u2019m feeling apathetic right now but I do care about some things.\u2019
\n\u25cf Many think \u2018I can get away with it\u2019 but a reasonable person might think \u2018I might get caught and it\u2019s not worth the risk.\u2019
\n\u25cf An unproductive thought is \u2018I want to reward myself\u2019 whereas a more realistic thought is that a short term reward can lead to long term negative consequences. Therefore, it\u2019s not really a reward.
\n\u25cf \u2018I want to get high to escape reality\u2019 is more likely to create a new harsh reality.
\n\u25cf \u2018I\u2019m off probation now, and I can make my own decisions.\u2019 A reasonable person might realize that their best thinking got them into trouble in the first place.
\n\u25cf \u2018I can\u2019t withstand cravings.\u2019 The truth is that they don\u2019t give in to every craving and they have a history of withstanding many cravings.
\n\u25cf \u2018I miss the thrill of getting high.\u2019 Others would seek thrills in a more reasonable way.
\n\u25cf \u2018I can\u2019t stop my thoughts.\u2019 Although there is some truth to this, you are in control of whether you allow yourself to dwell on your thoughts. You are responsible for the outcome of your thoughts.<\/p>\n
If you are struggling with an addiction, apply three steps to correct yourself. First, reflect on your automatic thoughts. Second, assess if your thought is reasonable. Third, if your thought is unproductive or unreasonable, replace it with a more reasonable thought. This group of former addicts now stops to consider the consequences of their thoughts. Many of them have been drug free for years. Addiction is treatable and can be successfully managed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is not easy to battle an addiction and achieve abstinence. It may be even harder to maintain it. Drug and alcohol addiction is considered to be a chronic disease and recovery is a process. Therefore, relapsing is not only possible, but likely. Relapses to substances don\u2019t come out of the blue. Relapses are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interactionstherapycenter.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}