Old 12-17-2011, 05:34 PM
  # 27 (permalink)  
Threshold
Grateful to be free
 
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Arizona
Posts: 3,680
I tried aversion therapy...didn't help me at all. My daughter, who was an outside observer at the time, pointed out that it seemed to be keeping me that much more obsessed with my DOC, since now I was also stressing over the "punishment" etc etc. And I saw she was right and dropped that.

It seems my personality tends toward positive reinforcement. There were things I truly wanted in my life, that using was keeping me from. So yes, of course the crappy bit of addiction WAS a huge incentive, IS a huge incentive, but so is the things I want out of life that active addiction was holding me back from.

I created a recovery journal, while I was still using, where I identified how addiction played out in my life. The situations that led me to using. Patterns in relationships and situations that I kept banging my head over. And things I wanted. I thought out what was going on, where I wanted to do, what I needed to shed, and what skills I needed to learn to get where I wanted to be.

Then I started working that program. One of the things I need to do is to return to that journal and read it, often. I add new insights, sometimes I edit (always keeping the original idea visible and including the date of the update) I mark in the margin if there is a particular issue I keep having trouble with.

Working towards what I want for my life rather than against something is most effective for me.

My addictions play out in many areas of my life, and many of then are not something I can stop forever and always. So for me, I had no choice but to work towards wholeness. Some people feel they can focus on cutting out a particular substance or habit, and that is enough. I saw right early on that that method would not bring me where I wanted to be.
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