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hey there everybody and welcome back to the addiction and mental health Disorders Treatment manual this is unit 1 part 23. today we're going to start discussing how to enhance self-efficacy
or you're feeling that you actually can do this I'm your host Dr Donnelly Snipes
efficacy is your confidence that you are confident or you are able to accomplish your goal
efficacy you want to have the belief that you can manage your physical health and
conditions you believe that hey you know I can identify this and I can manage my medications
I can manage my treatments that doesn't mean you have to know how to do it all by yourself that's
what therapists and doctors and sponsors and everybody else are there for to help you along
the way but the belief that you can Implement these things with or without help is important
you want to have the belief that you have the ability to manage your moods a lot of people
in recovery are experiencing what we call emotional dysregulation they go from Flat to
Furious or flat to frantic like that instead of having feeling okay a lot of the time and
then getting irritated or getting a little bit worried it's either all or nothing and
that can be really exhausting and very overwhelming when it happens so in recovery
you're going to develop this sense of confidence that you actually can manage your emotions
you want to have the feeling that you've got the ability to manage your thoughts and your
learning you're going to figure out the things that negatively impact your ability to concentrate
that affect your mood or affect your attitude so remember mood is how you feel whether you're
happy you're sad you're angry your attitude is how you think whether you're optimistic or pessimistic
you want to feel like you have the ability to manage your environment that you can feel
safe wherever you're at and that you can manage your social interactions or your relationships
you want to believe that you have the ability to form healthy relationships now for a lot of
people these are goals that they're going to work toward it may not be something they have
right now and that's okay but recognizing when you feel like you have the ability to manage
all these things you are well on your way to solid recovery self-efficacy efficacy involves
judgments of personal capabilities and change and that change according to the task involved
you may believe that you can manage your day-to-day Health if you know as things go if you
get a cold you can manage that but then when you start getting really sick when you get a fever you
may not believe you can manage that anymore which is when you go to the doctor you're still managing
it because you're reaching out and you're asking for help but you recognize you can't do it alone
people who lack confidence in their ability to recover are less likely to engage in
recovery tasks or keep on going persevere when faced with obstacles and challenges
so basically if you don't have confidence in the process or in yourself then you're
probably going to have a low frustration tolerance and be more likely to relapse
foreign confidence in daily life and anxiety or depression have a serious impact on your overall
functional status and your willingness to do things so if you're not confident then it's
going to contribute to your anxiety it's going to worsen your anxiety and when you feel anxious a
lot of the time eventually you may also start feeling hopeless and helpless or depressed so
this all feeds into itself higher self-efficacy or confidence means a high probability of success
which could make you more likely to be willing to try and do things if you have confidence that you
can make this work then you're going to be more likely to get started self-efficacy influences
your level of effort and attitude towards difficulties and the choices that you make if you
feel confident if you have efficacy then you're more likely to persevere and keep going even
when it's tough if you don't have self-efficacy or confidence then when it starts getting tough
you may throw up your hands and say forget it you may have a very low frustration tolerance
self-efficacy affects your way of thinking which could determine whether you are willing to take
action people who don't feel confident who don't have a sense of self-efficacy
often stay in pre-contemplation because they're looking at it going
I'm hopeless I'm hopeless there's nothing I can do why should I even try spend about 50 minutes
asking yourself do I have the skills and ability to make positive change in my life
and remember your your efficacy is very dependent on different things so the positive change what
positive changes do you have the skills and abilities to address and for the changes that you
want to make the positive changes that you want to make if you don't have the skills and abilities
right now what do you need and where can you get them you know counseling support groups books
where is it that you can find these tools and skills in order to make the changes that you want
just like if you wanted to start a new hobby like woodworking you know I've always thought
about woodworking but there are so many tools and skills that are needed that I don't have right now
I could not effectively build a cabinet because I don't have those skills or tools I know where
I could start finding them I'd get a book I'd learn about it I'd probably take some classes
same thing is true for Recovery this is not magic this is a learning process
in terms of the positive changes that you want to make in your life what would increase your
self-confidence in each one of those changes what could help you have that can-do attitude
thinking all right I might be able to do this How likely do you think it is that you can get sober
and why is it that you feel that way if you feel like you are you know 90 chance that you
can get sober great why is it that you feel that way you have a lot of self-efficacy if
you think it's 50 50 you know that's a little bit more concerning why do you feel that way
and what skills and abilities might you need in order to get up to an 80 or a 90 percent
same thing with getting happy and getting healthy I know those are very vague goals but what is your
belief that you can actually achieve those things and what skills and tools do you need
to add in order to increase the likelihood that you'll be able to achieve those goals