Besides the psychological (depression) or physiological (anxiety symptoms) withdrawal symptoms one experiences when giving up something, weed, alcohol, cocaine, caffeine, sex, or whatever it is that one is addicted to, three consistent feelings come up once one gets his/her act together.
-Boredom.
-Inner Emptiness.
-Uncertainty pressure.
These are hard things to address considering that you didn’t exactly experience these for the period you had stayed high or drunk. And they are hard things to get over especially if you are experiencing them past the age of 30. This article is to tackle this particular issue as they are drivers back to one’s relapse.
Usually, killing off an addiction also involves quitting the environment you had been accustomed to getting your fix as well as quitting the friends that you used to party with. You become an adult about things and face life head-on. These three feelings can be hard on you, add to it the feeling of loneliness you get when you dump your friends and you are now facing three possibilities actual depression which usually leads to relapse, or making a decision to stay sober despite the emotional hurt that it will bring to you.
This is a hard thing to get over. Especially if you are doing it alone like I was. The tears, heartache, the constant breaking down and building yourself back again all the while still warding off everything that brought about the aChrist, Discipleinddiction and the pressures of performance in life. It was all too hard to bear for me and I know it’s all too hard to bear for you as well. Good thing is, there are three ways to go about it as an introvert and four ways to go about it as an extrovert to minimize the effects of this hard transition. I will mention the first three as it caters to both introverts and extroverts and the last one for extroverts specifically.
1.) FAITH as an antidote to EMPTINESS.
Believe it or not, building your spirit during this period is vital for your mental health and your reintegration into society and life in general.
When we were doing drugs or alcohol, the one part of ourselves that was suffering more than our bodies were our spirit. This is because these substances were portals for the demons to wreak havoc in your life. And if you’re not a believer of Christ, then think of it as portals for your inner demons to run a mock. When you are not yourself and are dependent on a substance just to get out of bed or just to run away from reality, there is a high chance that you are spiritually dead. A living spirit is an energy in and of itself. It has vibrations that communicate to other vibrations outside its space which result in slow but steady repercussions of those vibrations either rewarding you or rejecting you. Anyone can tell a dead spirit even if you aren’t aware of it. How they react to it will depend on the level of investment they have in you. Most will ignore it if the encounter will cost them nothing. But if they are to get an important service from you or they are to entrust a huge duty to you, chances are, you’ll get rejected for it. Since your dead spirit will not respond to their live one.
To revive your spirit, you have to believe in something. It is the only way.
Choosing what to believe in will be one of the toughest choices you will ever make as a human. Because this will be the true beginning of your life’s purpose. Personally, for me, I’d tell you to choose Christianity. The FUNDAMENTAL kind, since this way you will be in complete control of your spirit and what enters it. Fundamental Christians follow what the New Testament of the Bible says. It is what is considered the Truth of Christ (who is God) and on practicing its hard teachings for a prolonged period, you will realize just how free you will feel and just how the world is full of deception. The kind we all fell for when we got into drugs, alcohol, and other addictions. The kind that seduces us into losing our freedom, our spirit, and if we had kept it going for too long, our minds and consequently, our lives.
Faith in a higher power will redeem your spirit and with the knowledge that will dawn on you from the truth you will experience in its teachings, you will be free of emptiness forever. Once God gets into your system, your vibration will know nothing but contentment in yourself, in your life purpose, and in the promise of life beyond this life.
2.) DISCIPLINE to counter BOREDOM.
You will have to do something to keep your mind, body, and spirit away from boredom. Preferably something that will involve two or more of your senses. Exercising, journaling, learning a new skill, working on your talents no matter how latent they are… Whatever you decide to do, do it intentionally every time you feel boredom creeping in.
Of the three, the one feeling that can easily deter an intellectually inclined individual, a creatively gifted individual, or a natural adventurer back to old habits of addiction, is boredom.
It is therefore good to keep your mind, body, and spirit busy from the feeling of missing something to do or the blandness of doing something you are used to. It will be frustrating at first to adopt a new habit as it will take at least 21 days for your mind to get used to the new wiring and your dopamine detox, but it will be necessary to do if you have any chance of living a fulfilling life and loving yourself while doing it. Self-esteem is important, but people fail to realize that you have to work on it to get a high sense of it. Sacrificing your addictions and gaining new skills in the process is the easiest yet the most psychologically demanding way to get high self-esteem. But trust me, it is worth it. As we speak right now, I am experiencing a high rush in my sense of self every time I get my research and thoughts on this blog. As much as it is out there to help you, it is also out here to help me as I am not wasting time thinking about the next fix but working on something that will help as many people as I can reach. You don’t have to do something impactful to anyone (although I realized that this is something most extroverted and conscientious introverted need to do to get a high sense of self) but so long as it is impactful to you, it should be more than enough.
3.) LIVING A DAY AT A TIME to counter the effects of the UNCERTAINTY PRESSURE.
The pressure of what now? Now that I am sober and have decided to be in touch with reality after all this time, how will I deal with life? How do I learn to focus again? How do I face the hurtful emotions I have been avoiding by getting high? How do I become whole again in a world as deceitful and wrathful as this? Can I trust myself to make the right decisions for myself? For others? Can I trust myself with my future?
These are hard questions to face, but they have to be faced. Since once you clear the fog of drugs, alcohol, or sex, you will come face to face with your true nature. Your individual self. Both your light and your shadow. Because of this now, you will have to address two things on your journey.
i.) Reconcile with your past.
Accept that you have lost time and opportunities in your past because of your actions and addictions. Accept that you may not have been trustworthy to yourself in the past and that you might need to communicate with both sides of yourself (the light and shadow) to create ground rules for the future. Accept that your darkness (your shadow), which was created from past traumas, usually from childhood exists in you and that it is a powerful force bound to you forever. Accept that you need to address these past issues a day at a time to kill the desire of running away from reality once and for all. Address these traumas from points of FEELING not thinking, since your shadow is hellbent on operating from this point.
Could it be that you felt unloved, undesired, and unwanted as a child? That the loneliness you experience as an adult created a void that only drugs could fill. Could it be that you were sexually abused when young and had no emotional capacity to deal with such scenarios in your childhood resulting in abnormal sexual habits (too much or none of it due to inexplicable disgust of it)? Or you were constantly emotionally battered with your manhood or femininity used against you in a bid to control you? There must have been something. In all the books that I have read and all the research I have gone through, very rarely has it been noted that addicts came from completely fulfilling lives unless they were open-minded and bored, which is a small minority, less than 5% in the US alone.
Find what hurt you emotionally and address it safely. For men (since they need this the most and since they are the ones that suffer alone the most), I suggest reading or listening to the book “No more Mr. Nice Guy” by Robert Glover. It will give you healthy resources to do this daily…but in a nutshell, it involves treating yourself nicely without ever feeling guilty for it and it gives you the tools to be a more assertive man. Once you kill off the guilt and enjoy being a man again, your confidence in yourself returns and so does your value to society. Finding a spot for yourself in this world will soon become easier once you do what this book will guide you to do. For ladies, I’d suggest journaling down your feelings as you are more eloquently equipped than men to do so. Going slow on the not-so-hard items first should help before facing the big questions once you are emotionally capable of doing so.
ii.) Follow a plan for the future.
We all have inherent gifts, talents, and skills. They were not put there for show. Whatever value you are to bring to this world was linked to them. We were just too busy getting high to nature them. This is the time to do it.
Don’t think of how old you are (if you’re above 27), don’t think of how limited you are in terms of resources. Trust me. If you have come this far, this is the time for this to get done. This journey of darkness and reawakening only adds to the passion that your skill, talent, or gift will bring to this world, making it all the more unique and valuable to everyone that will be exposed to it.
It’s time to make a plan and be diligent about it. Focus on it even if it doesn’t seem as though it will give you any return. Even if you feel the pressure of time and competition, even if you think you won’t make it. Just do it. Forget your feelings in the journal and get your hands dirty. And not just dirty, but filthy. You have to stop making excuses and work through your feelings. You have to target an ending and work towards it. Set short-term goals and achieve them. Create and maintain momentum in your actions. Add progressive time, energy, and resources to what you are working towards and keep the pressure going.
You need to build it so it can build you. But while on it, you will realize that the stress (if it’s a worthy goal it must come with some of it) that it will give you will also be building you as a person as you go through this.
It will be a challenge but do not ever give up. Ever. Keep moving forward. Always.
Live a day at a time, achieving those subsets of goals. And once you do, you feel more in control of your life. The uncertainty of life will slowly and surely disappear over time as you feel as though you are actually living for real this time.
This last bit of advice only works for severely lonely introverts or extroverted individuals.
4.) SURROUND YOURSELF WITH POSITIVE PEOPLE to beat loneliness, uncertainties of life, and boredom.
When all else fails as they are hard to do alone if you are a people person (thank God I am not), then this is a clutch you can work with. If you are lucky enough to have someone you can trust (if not, you can find people who are obligated to be trustworthy to be your friends. Doctors, Priests, Psychologists, or Counsellors are good bets. They may not share their lives with you as much as you’d want them, but rest assured, to keep their jobs (coz you can sue them if they breach and it will bring dire consequences to their lively hoods if you do) they will keep what you tell them a secret so long as what you say is within the bounds of patient-doctor confidentiality. It is good to point this out before disclosing anything too personal to them. Also, it’s best to work with other masculine men, if you are a man. Just to keep your secrets all the more tight-lipped).
Surround yourselves with guys that are winning in life and if you can’t be with them yet, then study them from afar. Learn how they think, read their books, and see what they see in this life. The idea is not necessarily being around people just to feel good, although that is also good for you in the short term. But it is to learn how they perceive the world and its opportunities so you can see the world through the same lenses if not better.
Positive people have a positive mindset, and they charge surrounding people with positivity as well. Problems will start seeming like possibilities. Mistakes will be viewed as lessons and forgiveness of self and others will become automatic. You will learn from such people how not to take life too seriously and see it for what it really is. A game and a test.
A game for your physical body and a test for your spirit. Once you get to this level, there is nothing that will ever hurt you enough back into your addictions again.
In conclusion.
Keep the faith, stay strong, and carry on.
This world was meant to be harsh, so you have to be equally tough to face it. And it all starts in the mind.
Courage brothers and sisters. Do not stumble. If you made it here, it means you have the goods to make it through until the finish line.
All that is required is discipline, trust in self, the process, and most importantly God. Time is only a concept of the mind. Learn to use it as an asset and as a watch over your momentum as you aim and achieve your goals.
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