In the early stages of recovery, life can be overwhelming. Talking about feelings, going to meetings, focusing on spiritual development, can become too much. “Recovery burnout” is a real experience many in recovery have which leads them to become unmotivated. Leading a busy life of recovery can leave little room for self-care and self-maintenance. Burning out typically means there isn’t enough time being spent on self care.
Do Find Out What Causes Them To Become Unmotivated
Go through a check list and find out what might be causing their lack of motivation. They may need to take a few days “off” of recovery to sleep, indulge in mindless activities, and take care of themselves however they need to. By talking with them, you help them learn to identify and then change what changes their moods instead of giving up and being controlled by their emotional states. The more they can learn to articulate their emotions, the more successful in recovery they will be.
Do Help Them Discover What Helps Them Be Motivated
On the other side of the coin from finding out what causes demotivation is discovering what inspires motivation. What excites your loved one about recovery? What parts of recovery do they like participating in the most? Are there other kinds of treatments, therapies, or recovery they are interested in exploring? Sometimes all it takes is a little branching out to explore new options to discover what motivates them the most. Work on goal-setting to create some motivation in recovery. During the early months, goal setting can be easier with designated chunks of “sober time”. What do they want to accomplish by 60 days? 90 days? Six months? 9 months? What do they want to do by the time they take one full year of sobriety?
Do Encourage Them To Participate In Their Recovery
Accepting feelings and emotions is part of recovery. Honoring feelings and emotions is also part of recovery. Learning to walk through feelings and emotions in order to continue fulfilling responsibilities is a part of recovery as well. It’s easy to use feeling states as “excuses” to not get things done or participate in recovery. There are times when feelings beg to be felt, in their entirety, which can feel like a full time job. Treatment teaches life skills and coping skills for managing emotions and continuing to live in recovery, one day at a time. Most often, it takes getting into some action for recovery to shake of a lack of motivation.
When a residential addiction recovery program ends, that doesn’t mean the addiction does. Sobriety is a lifelong commitment that continuously needs to be reinforced, supported and altered as we grow in our skill to resist temptation, learn to understand our triggers and how to overcome them. Our aftercare services programs offer every client at Cypress Lake Recovery the ability to maintain and build a foundation of sober support. Call us on 409 331 2204.
