can you overcome addiction by yourself this is a question one of our
recent viewers asked and it's a good one and I'm sure one that
a lot of people have which is why I'm gonna tell you the answer to that question in this video
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down this youtube channel
is designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction
so you can recover your life and your loved ones and get back to living the life that you
want to live it's my job to make sure that you stay five steps ahead of addiction okay
back to our question can you overcome addiction by yourself well i guess it depends on what you mean
when you say by yourself if you mean completely by yourself and you tell no one and you're going
about the whole thing just completely by yourself it's kind of a secret in your head
the answer is no you can't do it that way and i'm going to explain why so keep listening
if what you mean by can i overcome addiction by myself meaning do i have to go to treatment or
something like that the answer to that question is yes you can overcome addiction without
having to go to treatment you can overcome addiction without having to go to 12 step
it's not that you need a certain kind of help necessarily or at least not in most cases
but you do need some kind of help so let me explain to you exactly why that is and help you
understand a little better what are the critical important ingredients that you need in order to
overcome addiction this way you can develop an effective plan and do this as autonomously as
absolutely possible so first let's take a look at why you can't overcome or beat an addiction
completely by yourself in secrecy well the reason is this my guess is if you're watching this video
you've probably already tried that several times so you kind of already have a hunch inside and you
kind of already know that it really doesn't work right let me explain why it's because
when you have an addiction you're so prone to rationalize justify run out of willpower
get frustrated and it's just too easy to fall back into all behaviors when it's just a secret
so i like to say you can't recover in secrecy and besides that addiction really lives in the dark
it's practically like the condition that allows addiction to grow that's how it survives is in the
darkness so one of the first things you have to do in order to get better from addiction is turn the
light on it you see the thing is you can't really trust yourself when it comes to your own addiction
and i know if you look deep down inside you kind of already know this is true let me tell you a
funny story about how even my son who's like nine years old already knows this so this year
because of covid he's in online school all virtual school and it has been a tough year for him and
us alike we all want him to go back to regular school however he's committed to doing virtual
school for this whole year and he's got a bad habit of not doing his assignments during the day
not logging on to some of his classes because he has all of his electronic devices
and he got in trouble last night for not logging on he actually missed a test so he was kind of in
trouble and he was getting talking to about it and i told him in the talking to you i said listen i'm
going to need you to come up with a solution to this problem because this ain't working
and so i was going for a walk so when i come back for my walk we can sit down and talk about it you
think about what it's going to take so go for my walk i come back and he says okay i have
some ideas and i said okay what is your ideas and he said i think i think you're going to have to
take my devices away because if i have them it's just like it's recess all day and i just can't not
like get on my devices i can't not play my phone or my switch or my ipad or whatever as long as i
have it there it's just too tempting and i found myself getting really frustrated with him i was
like listen i'm gonna need you to handle this problem because i don't have to be the bad guy
coming and taking devices and all this and then i started thinking to myself i'm like well amber
it's kind of a hypocritical thing for you to say because your kid who's nine years old is telling
you i can't manage this i'm telling you right now that if i have these it's too tempting so even at
nine years old he's able to see that he really just can't trust himself necessarily to make the
right decision and as frustrating as it was for me to hear that in the on the other hand i really do
kind of understand where he's coming from so the first thing you gotta do is you gotta acknowledge
can you trust yourself when it comes to this one issue you might contrast yourself when it comes to
every other issue out there but not this one issue and because of that you're going to need
some other kinds of supports and we'll get to those supports in just a minute now another reason
why your recovery process needs to be somewhat out in the open is because not only does addiction
live in the darkness but so does shame and guilt and anxiety and depression and all those really
uncomfortable emotions they live in the darkness too and as long as you're holding all these
secrets inside then what you're doing is you're almost like subconsciously pushing other people
away from you and it's hard for you to really connect with other people for you to really accept
positive encouragement any kind of good news because deep down inside you feel like they don't
really know the real you and so even if they're trying to be positive or loving towards you
it's hard to really let that in because you have this whole giant wall of shame inside and you see
the antidote to addiction is connection and so if you've got all this stuff in here blocking
your ability to connect then you're blocking your ability to recover so you need to turn the light
on all those big hairy ugly monster secrets you got deep down in the closet and once you do that
you're gonna feel so much freer so you're gonna have such a better ability to connect with other
people telling you you're gonna feel a hundred pounds lighter okay so now that you understand
why you can't do it completely in secrecy let's talk about the pieces that you do need in order
to put together some kind of recovery plan you don't have to go to treatment like i said before
you don't have to go to 12-step but i do suggest that you get a plan of some sort
maybe that's through your church maybe that's through smart recovery maybe that's through an
online program maybe that's just from seeing a counselor who understands about addiction
are getting a recovery coach or a peer support specialist there's a hundred ways and types of
support you can get it doesn't have to look any particular way now i will say that if you are
physically dependent on the substance especially if that substance is alcohol or some kind of
benzodiazepine or something like that then you may very well need some medical assistance to
detox or maybe even opiates or something like that you need some medical assistance but even
that doesn't necessarily always mean that you have to go to inpatient i just wanted to throw that
in there though because i don't want to skip that part because it's a pretty important part and some
kinds of withdrawal can be dangerous especially alcohol and benzodiazepines so if you're trying
to stop those substances make sure you check with your physician to make sure that you're
physically okay to do that all right so back to the main topic you've got to have a plan of
some sort and you need to put those resources strategically in place one of the things that
you need from those resources is you need to have a really good understanding of addiction
now if you're watching these videos you may already have a really good understanding of
addiction because that's what we do right here on this channel hey if this video or any of my
videos have given you any kind of help or value give us a like it helps us to spread recovery
okay so you need a plan that plan needs to help you understand exactly what you're dealing with
it's kind of like know thy enemy that's the only way you're ever going to get five steps ahead of
it is to really understand what you're dealing with and in recovery we call addiction cunning
baffling and powerful and let me tell you it truly is but once you understand the rules to the game
it's definitely possible to beat addiction you just gotta know what you're dealing with you also
need some kind of system of accountability because you are going to run out of willpower i have some
videos on willpower if you'd like to take a look at those just so you kind of understand how all
that works but they're going to be days that are harder than other days they're going to be days
when you don't feel like it days you don't want to and when you run into those days you're going
to need something else to hold you in place so you see that's not too bad right you need a plan you
need to understand exactly what you're dealing with and you need some system of accountability
if you're really looking to take those steps but you're nervous about talking to a counselor or a
recovery coach or going to a meeting or something like that then you can take a look at some of our
online programs those programs can help you put these things in place on your own time and from
the comfort of your own home i'll put the link to those in the description but in the meantime
on your journey of understanding exactly what you're dealing with i want you to watch this video
because it really breaks down the core components of recovery and exactly the pieces that you need