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Planning is vital in your recovery! Whether you are planning your day, or planning to cope with specific situations, the essence of working your recovery during the festive season is to ensure that you spent time making plans! Know beforehand how you will manage your time during Christmas and the New Year. Often, recovery is put into danger when a situation arises that you have no idea of how you will deal with a high-risk situation. Granted, it is virtually impossible to plan for every situation before it happens, as many things will happen that you weren’t expecting. However, it is possible to have contingency plans in place that you can use in time when the unexpected arises. As you progress through your recovery you will notice that you become more adept at handling specific dangers: this only comes with practice. We can only ever achieve something we really want to by spending time in the planning of things before we experience or implement!
Triggers, as I am sure you are aware, will sometimes arise when you least expect them too (this is why they still remain powerful, even in your recovery). When you’ve made the decision to be active in your recovery, you acknowledge that the underlying theme in recovery is that you work it, rather than it working you (as your addiction did). Part of working it means being actively involved in determining how you will navigate certain events, or times where triggers will be all around. The Christmas and New Year time of the year is full of unexpected triggers and high-risk situations that could be a danger for your recovery. However, this doesn’t mean that you need to give in to them, remember that you have the power in recovery and working the plan is a vital part of you taking control back from your addiction.
So, before the festive season hits us, spend some time focusing on how YOU will manage the season, and what back-up plans do you have to put into place to protect yourself, and to protect your recovery.
If you found this helpful, come back next week when we will talk about limits and about knowing those of your own, and anticipating other people pushing those limits.