Getting High on Recovery

What is the one thing you need, but if you have too much it can get you in trouble? Confidence.

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Confidence. It goes on our resume, your profile, and your website. And society believes that if you are endowed with a good measure of it, you will find success in whatever you do. It’s almost magical.

But confidence is over-rated. A person can be confident and still go in the wrong direction, you can be certain of yourself but still be wrong. You can drive confidently and end up with a speeding ticket, or end up missing your address (guilty on both counts).

In recovery, restoring your confidence is essential to improving your mental health. But there is a risk, becoming overconfident is a trap.

Overconfidence tends to prompt a decrease in self-regulation. This, in turn, informs the ‘blind spot’ that can trigger both relapse and pro-lapse—the replacement of one addiction or compulsion with another, even if that replacement behavior is apparently adaptive.

Reclaiming your confidence is one of the keys to improving your health. You don’t need to attend a seminar by Anthony Robbins, or buy a self-confidence program. Part of the 12 step program is to admit our powerlessness. What it is saying is that change begins with honesty.

Being honest with yourself about your deficits, but also your strengths will give you confidence. Naturally, your mind will focus on the negatives, but you need to give it something else to focus on.

Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith that God has given you. Romans 12:3

I like this quote from the New Testament. I won’t get preachy about it, I just want you to consider the message behind it. What it says is use your good sense, your sober thinking and refute your jumbled mind. Measure yourself not by the mess you have made of your life, nor by how much money or success you have had. Instead, see yourself through the lens of faith, or hope.

That bears repeating. See yourself through the lens of faith, or hope. Part of honesty is taking your potential into account. You don’t want to have rose-coloured glasses, but you also need to give yourself a pat on the back.

When you begin your recovery, your goal is to recover your health, but soon you realize that there is something more important than your physical health: the health of your mind. Recovery is about getting your mind right, because when you get your mind right, everything else is right.

You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they really are like. Maxwell Maltz

We know that taking action gives our mind a focus. One thing I find helpful is to understand your strengths and use them. I highly recommend this test by the VIA institute – Values in Action. Take it and you will see that no matter your recovery, whether it’s drugs and alcohol, depression or anxiety, you have strengths.

And it is your strengths that can change your life.

Begin today! Today is a day to rebuild confidence. Take the test, and tell someone about your strengths. Then do something with them. You will not regret it.

If this piece has inspired you, you will want to read Addiction and the Unquiet Mind, or Breathe into the Bag: Gender and the Anxiety Gap.

I write articles about wellness, leadership, parenting and personal growth. My hope is to deliver the best content I can to inspire, to inform and to entertain.

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Keep it Real

Photo by riboassi