Learning to give up control to reduce stress in early recovery
One of the hardest parts of early recovery is dealing with stress and one's own emotions. For many people, drug and alcohol use was a way to escape negative thoughts and feelings, and dealing with one's own emotions became foreign to them. This is especially true for those who may be dealing with untreated PTSD or trauma caused by childhood abuse or neglect. Often, one may not even understand the thoughts or feelings they are experiencing if they become common and frequent. Some may know very well the issue that caused them to reach for something to numb their feelings.
For those in an inpatient setting, they may find they are coping well and cravings are minimal while in a treatment centre. Upon discharge when they are entering back into the world, they may begin to struggle with life stresses and the people in their life, and they find the cravings return. Not having the tools to help work through stress and find healthy coping mechanisms can set you up for relapse. Emotional relapse is often the first sign that an individual is about to start using again. Learning to deal with stress isn't particularly easy. One also doesn't have to be going through recovery to know this. The amount of stress the average person faces becomes enough for even the most mildly tempered individual to break at some point. The goal is to find an outlet and ways to help you deal and cope with the stress you face.
When dealing with stress, there are several tools you can use to help you get started and make a plan of action. We are going to focus on learning to identify What's in your Control and how to respond. When you start identifying what's in your control and what's not, and not trying to control everything and everyone, it can relieve a lot of unneeded stress in your life. When dealing with situations and people, it's easy to want to try and take control, especially if things aren't going our way or are causing distress. This often blows up in our faces and only causes added stress when we realize we cannot change and control all the things we want.
By categorizing things into In My Control, Not In My Control, and Some Parts are or this May Be In My Control, you can learn to choose your battles and save yourself from added stress that serves no purpose and triggers you to want to use.
Not In My Control: A great example is it's raining. You cannot control the rain. This is a hard no in the control factor. What You can control, however, is your response to it. While you have 0 control over the rain, you can make adjustments to avoid some of its negative effects. You can grab an umbrella, you can leave early to avoid slowed traffic, and you can tell yourself the rain is natural and needed. Also, examine any cognitive distortions you have and tell yourself they aren't true (ex " Of course, it's raining, my life is hell, and everything bad happens to me. Why do I bother.")
As you know, getting upset and yelling won't bring you peace or fix anything. Nor will ruminating or lashing out at others while upset. On top of this, if you let this bug you bad enough, odds are you will find other negative things happening throughout the day because you will be in a bad mindset, and other things will seem worse than they are. “Bad luck” will literally follow you. So, don't let the rain get you bent out of shape and add further issues that aren't needed to your day -unless lightning strikes your house and it lights on fire. Rain is not the end of the world.
Things that are Somewhat/Maybe In My Control: Maybe you ordered a sandwich for lunch. Your order arrives and you notice mustard pouring out of the sides. You hate mustard. You were looking forward to getting this sandwich all morning and now it's covered in mustard and you want to throw it. Fortunately, you have some possible control over this. You can politely return your sandwich, point out the issue, and ask for a new one. The best-case scenario is you get a new one and it's only been a minor inconvenience in your day. Perhaps they won't change your order, but at least you tried, and then you tell yourself you won't let mustard drive you to drink. Note: If you have difficulties with situations like this, it would beneficial to learn some extra communication/assertiveness skills. The other options you have are to yell, throw your sandwich, or eat it and be miserable and ruminate all day about mustard ruining lunch and your life. The choice is yours.
In My Control: You're sitting at home enjoying your favourite movie and you don’t want to listen to your phone keep ringing. You know that you can't control the other people contacting you. You could ask them all to stop, but they may not though. You know that you can turn the sound off your phone for the duration of your movie though. This is in your control, so you simply control the situation by stopping your device from making sounds and bugging you.
While these are simple situations and the issues we face may be much larger and more pressing, the idea is by practicing this daily, and journaling about situations that occurred and how you handled them or could have done better, you will equip yourself with one tool to help you mitigate some of the stressors in your life in the stressful world we live in.
