There are a lot of awful physical struggles that come with the withdrawal process. However, the relieving aspect of recovery treatment is that those things are capable of being overcome. Physical withdrawals are always temporary. Now, the mental struggles are also conquerable, but in a different fashion. It takes more than just exercises and a sober coaching to maintain sobriety. One needs to see the self-assurance to move through the struggle of withdrawals to the other end. Along with guidance from your professional counselors, sober companion, and treatment staff, you can find the hope in yourself to withstand the demons that say that you will not get out of it. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind in order to prove those mental naysayers wrong and effectively fight intrusive thoughts during withdrawal.

Spotting the Lies

One of if not THE most important thing when fighting intrusive thoughts during withdrawal is spotting the lies. When your brain is in the midst of withdrawals, there are a lot of things that are being presented as fact, which are actually just misinterpretations of fact. These lies are often so subtle that we can easily just gloss over them while we focus on physically keeping away from the addictive substance. Your brain and body will try to convince you of anything when it is desperately craving the substance you are trying to avoid.

Remembering the Truth

One key way to notice these lies is to doubt the feeling of doubt. Whenever we feel like we are in a negative spot (i.e. believing that we can’t do this) that might be because we treat those subtle lies as reality. For instance, if there is a consistent lie in the back of our heads that says that we are faulty enough to relapse, we might grow to feel that is inevitable. However, if we are reminded of the truth, which is that we are capable of standing through the withdrawals without relapsing, we can see that that doubt is just a lie. We can say, “Yes, relapse is possible, but I have just as much of a real opportunity to move past it.”

Fighting Intrusive Thoughts During Withdrawal: Lessons from our Struggles

The mental demon is just spouting fears, and fear is not logical. It is just something to ignore in order to get to the sober life we dream of. And in that sober life, we will be able to look back and see that the demons, in a way, allowed us to get through the withdrawals. When we ignored the ideas of failure and unworthiness, we have to rely on another belief. And that belief is the same one that friends, counselors, and sober companion each know: that you are intrinsically capable of saying no to the addiction and saying yes to the peaceful life without it.

If this article helped at all, or if you require a different point of view on overcoming withdrawals, then please feel free to contact us. Our sober companion, counseling, and other recovery care services in Baltimore can help guide you through the next step to recovery with all of the necessary tools to overcome the withdrawal process.