Staying near home is a clear impediment to this already tricky effort. It is sometimes annoyingly easy to get distracted daydreaming about your memories compared to the place you are currently in.
Still, it is also essential to not leave the opportunity for yourself to leave anytime you want.
When you stay local, it is a lot easier to make excuses to go for a short time here and there or give up entirely. With being away from home, however, leaving is much harder and something you have to think harder about before doing. Though it is crucial to have a support system during your path to recovery, it is essential to reduce temptation by allowing yourself some distance from home seeing as you play a significant role in your support system. You can have friends and family visit during your rehab program. Still, many results show that you should keep it separate from your main objective and priority of a successful recovery.
Can Recovery Cause Bad Habits?
Quite simply, the answer is yes. Being aware of these more often formed habits though ahead of time can be extremely helpful for those who genuinely want to obtain sobriety and peace of mind in their lives. Some of the more common reasons why people can fall into bad habits in recovery may include:
- Those people who become stuck in their recovery will begin to feel uncomfortable. They may try to overcome this discomfort by turning to bad habits.
- Some people are prepared to settle for a less than ideal life in recovery. They feel that by giving up alcohol or drugs, they have already done enough.
- Those individuals who have fallen into addiction can hold onto a mistaken belief that if some is good, then more is better. This tendency to overdo things leaves them wide open for developing bad habits.
- The addictive personality means that people can be more susceptible to falling into this type of behaviour. These character traits include an inability to deal with stress, impulsive behaviour, and attraction to nonconformity and deviant behaviour.
- Just because the individual has given up alcohol or drugs does not mean that they have eradicated all their maladaptive behaviours such as bad habits. Staying sober is enough of a challenge, and most people will wait until they are established in recovery before they begin working on other bad habits (e.g. smoking cigarettes) – the aim of rehabilitation is progress and not perfection right away.
Being Mindful Of Your Bad Triggers
We are continually getting cues to take specific actions. The signal can be internal or external based on what one of your senses pick up.
To change bad habits, you have first to try and fully understand why triggers happen. To do this, you should record information whenever you feel the desire to commit to your bad habit.
The information is as follows:
Location: Where are you?
Time: Write down the time of day where the urge was felt.
Mood: How were you feeling emotional?
People: Who were you with or what people were around you?
Action: What were you doing at the exact moment the urge surfaced?
Social & Professional Impact
Stigma still exists, and many people do not understand the addiction disease or even just addicts in general. You should not want to go out-of-state just to run away and hide. Still, it is understandable to want to get away from your local scene and deal with recovery without also dealing with the stigma and various misunderstandings that many people may have about your struggles with addiction and the very tough journey to recovery that you are striving towards. It can be beneficial for you not to have to worry about what people may think or say if they find out about your situation and choice to get help through an addiction treatment centre. When you go far away for treatment, you can maintain your privacy and do not have to worry about the judgment of others hindering your recovery. Besides, it’s always nice to get a change of scenery now and then.
Transformation Starts Here
Taking that first step towards recovery is one of the most powerful things you can do. If you or a family member need help and you want to get the best treatment possible, get in touch with us now. With over twenty years of helping people to find peace in recovery, we are South East Asia’s Leading Addiction Treatment Centre.
