How To Stop The Cycle Of Addiction Forever!

How to break the cycle of addiction forever. And the tips I'm going to give you today are probably not what you would normally think of. So in this video, we're going to talk about changing your thinking on three very important concepts when it comes to beating and addiction. If you really want to overcome addiction, you've got to start thinking about these three things very differently because most people don't understand how these concepts really work on a biological level, on a psychological level. That's why so many people struggle to get that long term recovery that they seek. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel down, the YouTube channel designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and your loved ones back back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. All right, to our topic. I'm going to tell you about three things. The first two things, you're going to have to learn to put less stock in. And the last thing, you're going to have to learn to put more stock in. Let me explain what I mean. We're going to start by talking about what most people feel like is the key factor for getting sober or getting long term recovery, whatever you want to call it. Most people think the long term, key, most important factor is motivation. They think you have to have the right motivation to get sober or else you're not going to be successful. Now, many of you have probably heard me say that you don't have to hit bottom, things like that. You know, you guys know I'm not a big fan of that concept. But you still may be thinking, well, you have to want it and you have to want it for yourself and you can't do it for someone else. And you have to be really, really, really, really, really motivated to do it. Well, it's not like you don't need any motivation at all, but most people feel like most people just put too much weight into that one component. And let me explain why that is. The reason is, is because your motivation is going to ebb and flow and that's natural. There are going to be days when you want it more than other days. There are going to be days when you don't want it at all. And you don't even have any motivation that day. And so you can't count on motivation to be your sticking factor as far as beating and addiction. You're really going to have to almost plan for what am I going to do on those days when I'm not motivated because if you'll understand, they're going to be good days and bad days. And that doesn't mean you didn't want it. You know, a really common mistake I see people make is if they've had a relapse, they'll, like, go back, looking back in time, and they'll say out loud or to themselves, they'll say something like, I guess I didn't really want it, or I guess I wasn't doing it for the right reasons, or I was doing it for someone else. Because they're trying to find out, well, why did it not work? If I wanted it bad enough, it would have worked. Not understanding that it is very natural for your motivation to ebb and flow. Just like if you're going on diet. Just like if you're making any other kind of big change, it doesn't mean you're not motivated. It means you're a regular person dealing with a lot of regular things, and your motivation is going to ebb and flow. Now, that leads me to the second factor that most people think is the key to successful recovery. The second factor is willpower. So I know you guys are thinking, if you. Okay, Amber with the motivation, but you gotta have your willpower or you're not gonna make it. Well, it's not that willpower is not important, but there, again, your willpower is. Is going to ebb and flow. And a lot of times your willpower ebbs and flows depending on how much stress you're dealing with in your life, how many other factors that you're trying to make work, like. Like your work and your home life and getting to meetings and your car breaks down and all of those other things. I do a lot of talking about willpower in some of our online courses, but essentially this is how I teach it to. To the clients that come into Hoover families. Willpower. You got to think of it like there's a. There's a willpower gas tank up in your brain somewhere, okay? And when you sleep, you get good sleep, like a good seven hours at least of sleep. And you eat. You've eaten, like, enough. Then your willpower tank is full. So the first thing to know is if you don't get good sleep and you let yourself get really hungry, you are starting out the day, like, with a half a tank or something. So you're bound to run out way too soon if you're starting out at half a tank. But even if you're starting out on a full tank, as you go through your day and you resist things and you make wise choices, whether it's not to scream at the drivers in the street, not to tell your boss what you really think about them, not to eat chocolate chip cookies. Whatever it is you're. You're. Your willpower tank, the gauge is going. You know, it's just losing it a little bit by a little bit. And the more things you're trying to resist, the more things you're trying to manage. Maybe you're trying to homeschool your kid because of COVID I can tell you from personal experience that'll take your willpower, take a right. It's just too much on top of everything else. And so you can't count on that willpower, just like you can't count on that motivation. And a lot of times, the willpower and the motivation are kind of in sync, if you know what I mean. So you might think, well, if you're out of willpower, but you have high motivation, honestly, when your willpower goes down, your motivation usually kind of goes down too. And it's not a matter of not wanting it, and it's not a matter of not being strong enough. It's a matter of you physically only have so much willpower. It works on little ATP molecules in your brain. Those are just sugar molecules. Same way everything else in your body runs. And when you run out, you run out. And if you don't have something else there to protect you when you run out of motivation and you run out of willpower, you're gonna be in big trouble. So you cannot count on those two things. Yeah, you're gonna need a little bit of it. But if you really want to beat this thing, you've got to be strategic. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about some ways to be strategic about that and some ways to sort of compensate for those times and days when the willpower and motivation are less. So, like I said, most people put too much weight into those two factors. And on the other side of that, people tend to put not enough weight and emphasis on the idea of triggers, on the idea of managing triggers. You see, most people, especially newbies, gotta say it. If you're out there and you've gotten yourself sober before, you guys tell me what your experience with this is, do you know what I'm talking about here? Most newbies, they will think, okay, I really want it. I'm going to be strong. And they just think they're going to sort of cowboy their way through it, and they most likely don't want to have to change A lot of things in their life they don't want to change friends, they don't want to change jobs or schools, they don't want to do anything. They don't want to change their route that they take on the way home from work sometimes because they think if. If I want it bad enough, those things aren't going to bother me. In fact, I've even heard people say, like, I'm gonna test myself, meaning I'm gonna put myself in a really high risk situation and test myself to prove how much motivation and willpower I have. And flag on the plate. Bad idea. Seriously bad idea. It's just not a smart decision. Triggers are just almost hardwired into our brains. It's almost like if you're not careful and you don't plan for and manage those triggers, you're gonna find yourself in this autopilot zone and you're gonna find yourself in a relapse before you even recognize what's happening. Has that ever happened to anybody? Have you ever found yourself in a relapse situation or almost in a relapse situation and you're literally like, oh, my God, like, what the heck? I wasn't even. It's like I was in zombie mode. There's a story in the AA Big book that talks about this where the guy, I think he's like a salesman or something, and he stops at like a cafe or something to have lunch, and next thing he knows, he's drinking. And when you read that story and you think, no way he meant to do that, if you know what I'm talking about. Like, sometimes if you get in that same routine, it's just so habitual that you find yourself doing the same old things. You really, really, really have to put more emphasis on managing your triggers. Now, if you're getting something out of this video and you like it, then consider giving it a thumbs up. That helps. Tell Google and all the other really important Internet people to show the video to more people. So give it a little thumbs up if you're getting some kind of value out of it. Now back to our lesson here. What you've got to do is you got to have strategy. You do not beat addiction by being some kind of tough cowboy type. Don't make it hard on yourself. Do every single thing possible to make it easier. Set yourself up for success. One of the ways that you can compensate for not having as much willpower or motivation on certain days is you can put some things in place. Sometimes I call them like safety nets or barriers or Accountability that will keep you holding solid on days when you don't feel so solid. This is not cheating. I've heard people say that these things are cheating, right? Let me give you some examples of what some of those things might be like. When it comes to alcohol, we use certain alcohol monitoring systems that create a lot of accountability for people so that if they're thinking about drinking, they're not going to because they know they're going to get caught because the system is really airtight. If you know that money is a huge trigger for you, then you may want to decide that you don't want to carry a debit card or that you don't want to allow yourself to carry cash. These are the strategic decisions that you make. Knowing that no matter how hard you try, sometimes you're going to run out of willpower, sometimes you're going to run out of motivation and you're going to come across a trigger. And when those three things, when the motivation and willpower are down and the trigger is up, you are in dangerous territory. And you got to think, what are you going to do beforehand to keep yourself safe in that kind of situation? Maybe you've set up to have regular drug testing through your work or through your family or through some kind of recovery monitoring system. There are all kinds of things that you can do to set yourself up for success. For example, if you know a high risk time for you is in the afternoons right after work, then you have to plan beforehand. What are you going to do in the afternoons right after work if that's your high risk time? You beat addiction by being strategic now, no matter how strategic you are and how hard you work on it, you are going to come across triggers and you are going to have a craving every now and then. Typically, if you will be strategic, if you will not gasoline those cravings or gasoline that thought in your head about wanting to use it will go away. If you want to learn more about triggers and cravings, I've put a link in the description of this video. If you're watching it on YouTube, you can see the link in the description. That will explain to you, you know, what to do in that kind of like emergency situation. If all else fails and you've been triggered and you have a craving. That video will explain what to do when you find yourself in that situation. Another thing you can do to help yourself strategically. A resource that I want to give you access to is our 30 day jumpstart. It's the same thing that our clients get. It's A little video message that comes to your inbox every day. Just a short message, like three minutes. I think they're like three to five minutes, some of them less than that. That will help keep you motivated and on track because strategically, when you do something like that, whether it's you're going to meetings, are you meeting with your counselor or listening to recovery podcast, it's keeping recovery in the front of your mind and that actually helps you stay more motivated and have more willpower. So that's something that you can do to keep fueling the gasoline willpower tank. If you'd like to get access to the 30 day jumpstart, you can get it for free. I've put a link in the description for you. You can click it, you can sign up for it, and you'll start getting those little video messages which will help you keep your hat on straight as you go through and especially on those days when you have some kind of hard days out there. Now let's take a look and see hear from our people who joined us live. If you're joining us on the replay, we definitely want to hear from you as well. I do go back and read through the comments and I respond to as many as I possibly can. So definitely want to hear your experience as well. Let's see here. Hey, thank you, Taylor, for the super chat. I really appreciate that that helps us to keep making these videos. Let's see, here we go. Some of you guys. It doesn't say your name because you're. You might be watching from a closed Facebook group. And it just doesn't say your name for confidentiality sake. So see, Elaine 11 in my case, I actually got to hit the bottom and have some compassion for myself. I cry when I remember how negligent I was and it makes me want to keep my focus on staying sober. So what, what Elaine 11 is talking about is she. If she's having a rough day, she remembers back to how bad things got. There's an old recovery skill. I mean, this is like really old school. It's called play in the tape. That's how old you know it is because it's referring to tape, as in like when you used to watch movies on VHS tape. And the skill is all about play the tape. Like when you're wanting to use. What happens is, is we in our minds, we just start thinking about the good part, as in like the preview of the movie. And we don't play that tape all the way through to remember that it always has a bad ending. That it does not end well. And I think Elaine there is telling us that she remembers back to how her movie always ends. And then that helps her stay sober. Sandy says so. Agreed. Willpower alone will not cut it for sure. I have witnessed this, and it leads to dry addict with only zero recovery proper. Now, if you haven't heard that term before that Sandy's using, thank you, Sandy, for that. Dry addict means someone that is maybe not using the substances it comes from. It's an old, like, Alcoholics Anonymous term that means someone's not drinking, but they haven't really worked on themselves. So it's kind of like they're the same person, but they've just taken their coping skill away. And a lot of times they're still struggling a lot with depression, anxiety, moodiness. All those same problems are there. They're just not drinking. That's what the term dry means. Hey, Terry. And Leaders for Better Futures. Hey, Sarah. Sarah says you can't wing it. That's right, Sarah. Winging it is a really bad plan. Right? You. You couldn't wing it. When you're in active addiction, you had to do all this planning and you had to think about how you were gonna sneak it and get enough and for it not to show up on the bank account. You gotta do all this strategic planning to keep your active addiction going. You're gonna have to use some strategic planning to keep recovery going. Please. Hey, Felice. Felice says, hey, Amber. You're awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Love this topic. Hate being blindsided by the triggers. I know what you mean. And Feliz is a family member. And family members have triggers too. Right? Family members need to think through. What's your strategic plan for when you hit your trigger and you're out of willpower and motivation to keep your boundaries healthy, to stay on your side of the street, to not sort of lose your cool and turn into that crazy person. You can actually hear more from Feliz. She and her husband LT have a YouTube channel called Recovering Addict. And they have wonderful recovery support meetings online for anyone in recovery. You guys should check it out. Let's see. Sheila says, how can I hire you? We are in my. Do you have virtual program? Where's M Y? I know I probably should know that we do offer virtual coaching and some online classes. And I will try to post some of those links so you can learn more about that. As soon as we get off this video, I will post those links for you or anyone else that's interested. New York. Okay, so it should have been NY I see. Where did you say the 30 day messages are? I joined late. There's a link in the description for that. And hey, Tammy, glad you're here. And Terry and Christina and Beverly and there's Feliz again. So we are about out of time. I will be on here for you live next Thursday at 1. And I'm going to try to actually put in a little part two to this video hopefully over the weekend, a little bonus one for you that talks about how to actually start moving towards recovery, taking those tiny, tiny steps that anyone can be successful with. So make sure you have your notifications turned on and you can check out that video now. Up next is a video about how to, let's see, the exact title is Break the Cycle of Addiction. This works every single time. And it's how to get out of that relapse cycle. It's a really good one. So I hope you guys catch it. Watch that next and I'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.