There’s a Beautiful Life on the Other Side of Addiction
Times have been tough lately with the COVID-19 pandemic. All across the world, the added stress and fear are certainly being felt. Some may think about coping with such stress by drinking or taking drugs. It can be tempting to allow challenging times to be a trigger, but ultimately will do you more harm than good.
Others may already be addicted to alcohol or a drug and the use could escalate during such uncertain times. This is especially true for those who have lost their job or aren’t able to work during the pandemic. Such added stress and frustration can be another reason to keep numbing out or trying to escape inner pain.
Life On The Other Side Of Addiction
The truth is that regardless of what you’re going through, abusing alcohol or drugs won’t bring you the peace or joy that you truly desire. It might give you temporary relief from pain or a break from your reality, but over time addiction steals the good things from your life. It may have already stolen some positive things in your life, like relationships, self-worth, finances, and so on.
Let’s turn our attention to your thought life for a moment. Your moods are a direct result of your thoughts much of the time. If you have predominantly positive thoughts, you will experience a positive mood, but if you have predominantly negative thoughts, you will experience a negative mood.
Thoughts are powerful and are always running through our minds. If we are not careful, we can allow negative thoughts to control our mind, which in turn affects our mood and behavior.
For example, if you allow negative thoughts like, “I never do anything right” or “I’ll never be able to stop drinking/drugging” to run through your mind all day, every day, you’re likely to feel down and maybe even depressed. Negative thoughts give a poor perspective on life. This oftentimes leads people to begin abusing substances, and before they know it, they can end up depending on those substances to cope with life.
What Kinds Of Thoughts Are You Thinking?
To gain insight on whether you have more positive or negative thoughts going on right now, sit and write down your thoughts about yourself and life. Write down what you think about you most of the time. Do you think you are confident or insecure? Loveable or unlovable? Nice or mean? Giving or selfish? Beautiful or ugly? Successful or a failure?
Take a day or two and be mindful of what you are thinking. It is important to learn if you are allowing positive or negative thoughts to rule your mind. If you find out that your thoughts are primarily negative, cross the negative thoughts out and replace them with positive ones.
If you wrote down, “I never do anything right”, cross that out and write, “I do many things right and learn from failure.” If you wrote down, “I drink to cope with fear, anger, frustration, pain, etc.”, cross it out and write, “I can learn healthy ways to cope with life’s frustrations and negative emotions.”
What you’re doing is replacing the negative with positive. If you begin thinking positive the majority of the day, every day, you will find that your mood and behavior will become more positive as well.
Learning to think positive is one tool for navigating the path toward overcoming depression and/or alcoholism/addiction. Many times, an individual gets depressed because they allow negativity to rule their lives. You can learn to re-train your brain to a positive mindset with discipline and consistency, and this can help you on your recovery path as well.
Positive Affirmations For A Better Life
Affirmations are powerful for retraining the brain, as they are positive statements concerning your desires. If you want to learn how to optimize your life with positive affirmations, make a list of positive statements and read it out loud daily. You don’t have to necessarily believe them now, but you’ll find that after you’ve repeated them out loud hundreds or thousands of times, you will begin to believe them and change your perspective.
Here is a list of sample positive affirmations:
Here is a list of sample positive affirmations:
- I am successful, smart, and an achiever.
- I can do anything that I put my mind to.
- I am giving, loving, and kind.
- I learn from my mistakes.
- I am sober and loving it.
- I am responsible for my emotions.
- I am confident.
- I am a beautiful soul.
- I am creative and believe in myself.
- I am feeling more peaceful every day.
- I am not alone. I can reach out for help.
You do not have to be a slave to alcohol, drugs, or depression. There is a lot of help available through addiction recovery rehabs, counselors, 12 Step programs, and more. Reach out for help today.
There is a beautiful place on the other side of alcoholism/addiction waiting for you!