It often starts as a fun recreational activity but quickly aggravates into a full-blown disorder. The use and abuse of drugs are only growing in the US, and Florida happens to be one of the hubs. Cities like Miami, Palm Beach, and Orlando are known for wild parties where narcotics flow openly. Other than the fact that doing drugs is an illegal activity, any of these substances can claim lives if left unchecked.
If you are serious about breaking the habit, we have a few tips that you may want to consider. The first of which is a no-brainer.
Check-in to a rehab facility
It’s going to be extremely difficult to break the habit without psychological and medical professionals around you. The physical and mental symptoms that come with withdrawal can be highly damaging to your health. In some cases, they can be deadly. For example, the seizures that come along with breaking a habit could cause permanent brain damage if not medically tended to.
Therefore, checking into rehab facilities like The Palm Beach Institute in Floridacan help you through the withdrawal phase and give you the medical attention you need. If you do not live in the state, search Google for a facility near you. Moreover, with the acute onset of delirium, it would be best if you were in a facility when the hallucinations hits. Most people fall right back into their addiction if they can’t handle the withdrawal symptoms. Rehab facilities aid patients to fight relapse and get them off the substance once and for all.
Writing down your thoughts
It may not be your thing to write your thoughts down, but if you want to break this habit, you will need to adopt new modes of coping. Writing can be a great form of catharsis and a significant psychological boost for people suffering from depreciated moods due to the lack of dopamine.
Keeping a diary and engaging in cathartic relief can go a long way in helping you through this time. Catharsis helps you get negative thoughts out of your head and out in the open. Most people bottle up their emotions and don’t release them for a long time, only to make matters worse.
The best thing about writing a diary is that your thoughts remain private. Talking to friends and family, a priest, or a therapist may make addicts feel vulnerable, exposed, and judged. If you don’t want anyone to know your business, write in a private diary.
Go out more often
One of the worst things you can do during recovery is to self-isolate yourself. The more time you spend alone, the more you will obsess over your thoughts and the greater your chance of relapse. Staying at home, feeling depressed, and not knowing what to do with yourself can lead to you returning to your old ways.
On the contrary, going out with friends and family gives you a dose of fun and a healthy balance of socialization. Moreover, it gives you the chance to confide in others about what you have been going through (if you are comfortable with sharing). Furthermore, getting out and experiencing the natural world makes you realize what you missed out on when you were using drugs.
Hit the gym
Once you clear the withdrawal phase and feel physically better, consider enrolling in a gym. Drug abuse has a tendency to leave people underweight and struggling to remain healthy. Now that you are cutting out bad habits from your life, replacing them with positive ones like exercise would be a good idea.
Besides coping with cravings, it’s also a great way to get healthy and fit as a new person. Eating healthy and living a healthy and active life can make you feel better about yourself, reduce depression and leave you hopeful about the future. Sweating and eating a clean diet can also help detox the body of the residual drugs in your system. You could speed up the recovery process and say goodbye to the habit for good.
Seek therapy
Many people need coping strategies to deal with cravings. You have to understand that these aren’t your run-of-the-mill temptations like late-night hunger pangs. Craving drugs is your body asking for the substance it was dependent on for a long time.
Moreover, a therapist can help identify the triggers that may lead to relapse. Intrapersonal thoughts and environmental cues may lead to a person feeling low and returning to the substances. A therapist can help with behavioral modification and positive affirmations that could go a long way in helping the patients fight back. They also help you deal with depression, anxiety, and stress and help you with motivation training to take back your life.
Drop your toxic friends’ group
Drug use often starts with your friends, and over the years, they act as enablers. Moreover, it’s common for your circle of friends to ridicule and mock you if you tell them that you are thinking of getting clean.
You don’t need this toxicity, and it is best to get out of this social environment as soon as possible. The longer you are around these people, your situation is likely to worsen. Other than the fact that these people are potentially damaging your health, you don’t need negative people like this in your life.
Regardless of whether they cause your addiction or not, toxic peers can directly contribute to poor mental health. They may leave you with low self-esteem, depression, and social anxiety that could take years to get rid of.
Conclusion
Quitting drugs can be one of the most challenging tasks of your life, but it’s one that you have to undertake. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get clean and be the best version of yourself. This article mentions a few tips that can make quitting easy. Consider rehab and seeking professional help. Build healthy coping mechanisms such as writing down your thoughts and hitting the gym. Last but not least, go out more often, but not with toxic friends and enablers.
