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Personality Changes, Addiction and Self-Identity

When we struggle with addiction and have fluctuations in our personalities, the people around us often pick up on them and can be negatively impacted by them. We can also find that our personality changes impact our self-identity. Our personalities are not only outwardly affecting the people in our lives but also greatly impacting us and how we feel about ourselves. We might not always be aware of the changes in our personality traits. We aren’t always aware that our drug of choice, our dependence on it, and our addictive patterns are taking a toll on who we are as people. For many of us, we know we feel very different from one moment to the next but don’t necessarily know why.

Drastic Emotional Changes

We might feel calm one minute, and then very angry the next. We might have intense mood swings and go from feeling like we’re on top of the world and invincible to a full-blown bout of depression. Very often, we can attribute these changes to our dependence upon substances. Still, until we become more mindful of our addictive patterns, we’re suffering emotionally without developing the awareness to understand what’s going on within us.

We Use to Connect With Ourselves

Struggling with addiction can cause us to feel as though we don’t recognize ourselves because of the cycles of our addictive patterns. For example, we can feel more in touch with ourselves when we’re using, and then very detached and disconnected from ourselves when we’re withdrawing or newly sober. Our drug of choice might temporarily help us relax, block out the rest of the world, and ignore everything that’s stressing us out. We might use to drown out the thoughts and feelings we find most painful, our wounded sense of self, and our lack of self-worth. Picking up a drug or a bottle might make us feel more centered and aligned within ourselves. We might turn to drugs for an increased sense of confidence or self-worth. We assume that our drug of choice helps us improve our relationship with ourselves. We’ve learned that we can feel much better when we’re using than when we’re withdrawing. Without our “security blanket”, we feel insecure, anxious, and self-hating without our drug of choice, for example.

One of the beautiful parts of recovery is that we get to redefine who we are in terms of who we want to be. We no longer have to be limited or restricted by the person our addictions have forced us to be.

Are you ready to take the first step on your journey to recovery? Call The Guest House today at 855-483-7800!