We all use our drugs of choice for different reasons, often as coping mechanisms for the things we find hardest to deal with in life. One of the main reasons we develop addictions in the first place is because we’re turning to addictive substances and behaviors to self-medicate and to cope with our pain. The self-medicating process is often something we do unconsciously – we know we have a dependence problem but we don’t know what the source of the pain is that we’re trying to numb ourselves from. What are we self-medicating from?
Facing Ourselves Directly
One of the most important elements of healing from our addictions is figuring out the source of our pain, where it came from, why it’s impacting us in the ways that it is, why we haven’t been able to heal from it, why we’re still dealing with specific unresolved issues. In order to assess what pain we’re self-medicating from, we want to take the things we’ve been avoiding and confront them directly. We want to stop running from our pain and face it head on. When we take the time to look inward, when we allow ourselves to really feel our emotions rather than trying to suppress or escape them, we learn valuable information about ourselves and what still needs to be healed within us. Our addictions are essentially our attempts to escape ourselves and our pain. We want to start facing ourselves instead.
Examining Our Emotions
The next time you have an addictive urge and feel those familiar feelings of temptation, anxiety and uneasiness rise up within you, take some time to explore how you’re feeling without reaching for your drug of choice. What thoughts and feelings are triggering you so intensely that you need an addictive drug or substance to cope? If you’re feeling anger, who are you feeling anger towards? Is it a family member or other loved one? Perhaps it’s yourself you’re most angry towards, as the shame and guilt we carry can be some of the biggest triggers for our addictions. If you’re feeling grief, what is it you’re grieving? Perhaps you’re mourning the loss of an important relationship, or the loss of your childhood innocence because you were abused. If you’re feeling disappointed in yourself, where does that disappointment come from? Asking ourselves these questions is one of the ways we can start the self-examination process in order to heal ourselves. When we deny our emotions and refuse to look within, we give our addictions more fuel to overtake our lives, but when we start exploring our inner selves, we reclaim our power and enable ourselves to recover.
At The Guest House Ocala, we have personal recovery experience
and over 12 years in the recovery industry.
We have helped countless people recover, and we’re here to help you too.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488