Battling addiction is painful and can trigger feelings of helplessness. Active addiction can make you feel powerless because it takes away your ability to make sound decisions. The journey to reclaiming power over your life can be a difficult one but, with the proper tools and guidance, you can recover and take control over your life.
What is Empowerment?
Self-empowerment is a tool that you can use to take control over your life after addiction. The primary goal of empowerment is to transform you into a stronger, more confident person. It is used as a gradual yet highly effective form of addiction treatment that encourages self-discovery, confidence, and independence. Furthermore, it promotes self-awareness and supports making healthy mental, emotional, and physical choices for your life.
Empowerment and Addiction
Learning about and practicing self-empowerment during and after drug and alcohol treatment is beneficial because it enables you to overcome the powerlessness that often comes with addiction. Individuals who apply the idea of empowerment to fight against addiction can improve their self-esteem, embrace autonomy and self-reliance, and make positive, healthy decisions for both their physical and mental health. Empowerment changes the distribution of power from one element to another. In essence, self-empowerment transfers power from your addiction and gives it back to you.
Therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Modification
Therapy is one of the most effective ways to empower yourself. You can understand the causes of addiction and obtain the tools and skills needed to overcome substance use and mental health disorders.
Find Your Passion
What activities interest you the most? Doing things that you are passionate about builds self-confidence, inspires you, and gives you a sense of purpose. It can also be a great way to build new relationships and learn new skills.
Connect With Others
Allow others to empower you. Build a solid support system of family and friends that encourage you while you work towards achieving your goals. It is important to establish healthy relationships. Isolating yourself can leave you more susceptible to relapsing, so you must have positive interactions to maintain sobriety.
Embrace the New
Being open to new things is an important part of both self-empowerment and sobriety. Doing the same things, going to the same places, and seeing the same people puts you at risk of relapsing. Recovery is a chance to start over and forge a new path. Try new hobbies, learn new things, make new connections, and visit different places.
Set Goals
Setting goals during and after recovery gives you opportunities to shape your future. Goals encourage and inspire you to continue to move forward with a clear idea of what you want your life to look like.
Practice Patience and Stay Positive
Remember, recovery is a journey. Change does not happen overnight, so you must remain patient with yourself. Give yourself time and work through difficulties and use self-affirming words often. Working with a mental health professional can help you develop positive coping skills.
Practicing empowerment throughout your recovery process can be very transformative. Instead of feeling powerless, you can choose an empowering, positive path. It makes you feel more confident in your decisions, experience personal growth, and improve your health. At Valiant Living, we help men take back control of their lives. If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction and wants to get sober, find out more about our treatment programs and how we can help. Call Valiant Living to speak to a caring, trained staff member at (303) 952-5035.
