How do you rebuild your self-esteem in the early recovery process
many of you have been asking for me to address the issue of self-esteem
so in this video I'm going to give you three very very actionable steps that you can take to build
your self-esteem and your self-confidence in a way that is actually going to last
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down I'm Amber Hollingsworth and
this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology
of addiction and recovery so that you can get your life and your family back on track
and today's video really focuses in on the recovery side of things
there are a lot of people out there who think that drug or alcohol addiction
is a direct result of bad self-esteem and I guess in some situations it could be
but what I can tell you with some pretty solid certainty is when you have
a drug or alcohol problem or any other kind of addiction it will result in bad
self-esteem and the reason that happens is because you behave in ways that you normally
wouldn't because of the addiction you violate your own boundaries in ways that you normally
wouldn't you let go of things that are important to you you hurt people who
you really care about and the end result is feeling totally totally horrible about yourself
and it's really really hard to dig out of the hole of addiction when you
feel terrible and crappy and horrible about yourself in fact Your addiction really wants
you to think horrible and crappy and terrible about yourself because it keeps you down
so so low you don't have the strength to dig yourself up out of the hole
think about it like being in a relationship with somebody that's abusive what's one of the things
that always happened the abusive person begins to attack the self-esteem of the other person
to make sure that they don't fight back well let me tell
you what addiction has absolutely attacked your self-esteem and your self-confidence
it's one of the big huge ways it keeps you stuck it's probably and even more important
substantial factor than the detox or the withdrawal or the psychological
part of addiction it's the self esteem part it's the self worth
am I worth more can I do better do I have what it takes to overcome addiction
if you're really really struggling a good place to start is going to be to build your self-esteem
because this gives you the strength and the tools and the courage and the
belief that you can win this battle and let me tell you it's a totally
winnable battle so let's get started on building that self esteem and confidence
so you can go out there and win this battle now the first thing to think about
is the idea that when you have bad self-esteem you really stop taking care of yourself because
deep down inside you feel like you're not worth it you're not good enough you're not going to do
these good things anyway and that not taking care of yourself can come in many many forms
maybe you let your hygiene go or your appearance go
maybe you stop taking care of your house or your car because let's face it when
you're in active addiction you're so dang busy you can't manage all of life stuff
and manage those things at the same time and it's really easy to let them go because the
addiction is running the show and ultimately those things fall off of the priority list
so if you found yourself in this situation where you've been treating yourself badly
and allowing bad habits to take over your life which then make you feel even worse
about yourself which then makes your self-esteem lower and makes you not
take care of yourself even more you've got to reverse this cycle
the first easiest step you can take to help you feel
better about yourself is to start taking care of yourself and maybe it's simple like I'm
going to get up get dressed and fix my hair and my makeup if you wear makeup every day
I'm going to brush my teeth maybe I'm even going to put some white strips on my teeth
if that'll make you feel better I'm going to make up my bed I'm going to clean
my car take a wash rag and wipe off my shoes a little bit so that they don't look so dirty
any of these small things actually is a big big help to you cause you know when you get
up and you get dressed and you fix your hair and you put your face on and your clothes
aren't all wrinkled up you just generally feel better almost immediately
right so maybe one of your early recovery goals is just to get up
brush your teeth brush your hair get looking as nice as possible
and make up your bed you don't have to look like a movie star that's not what I'm talking about
I'm just saying make yourself presentable in a way that you feel good about it
if someone came and knocked on your door and you weren't expecting them would you be hiding
in the other room because you were too scared to answer the door cause you looked like a hot mess
if that's the case get up and get dressed even if you don't have anywhere to go or if you're
doing the whole work from home thing get up and get dressed it's going to help you feel better
taking of yourself in these small ways goes a long way to helping you feel better
the next step step number two that you need to take to build your self esteem and confidence is
to address your negative self-talk this is that little voice in your head that's
always telling you you're a crappy you can't you'll never amount to this
you don't have what it takes I want you to start thinking about that
little voice in your head like some kind of abusive relationship that you're in
in fact I have a video a kind of call it like a monster mouth it's a monster mouth
in your head that's abusing you it doesn't mean that it's true so stop listening to it
in fact when you hear those negative Self-talk thoughts you've got to confront them because
when you allow yourself to go down that rabbit hole ultimately what you're doing
is you're letting yourself off the hook and you're not holding yourself accountable for doing and
accomplishing all the things that you know deep down inside that you could if you just tried
if you don't want to do something I'm totally cool if you want to say I don't want to because
but no more I can't because okay no more I can't help it right
that's such a negative bad thought and if you're telling yourself you can't
help it then guess what then you can't help it it becomes your truth and your reality
now another couple of really common really bad negative self-talk statements that you
might fall into is if you think to yourself I always blank or I
never blank anytime you're thinking or saying always and never using really black and white
thinking which is rarely ever even true I'm okay if you want to say I often
or regularly this happens to me but it's probably not true that you always blank it's probably not
true that you always oversleep or you always fail your test or you always say the wrong things right
maybe you do that sometimes but you probably don't do it all the time right
so confront these negative thinking patterns
and ultimately what it boils down to is you have to hold yourself accountable for dealing
with the things that you struggle with the first step to doing that is to know that you
can do that which leads me to my third step of addressing self-esteem and that is addressing
your expectation of yourself and others
you've got to raise the bar on your expectations because guess what you get out of life what
you're looking for you get out of life what you expect in fact I've got a whole
video about that now if you are either thinking about getting recovery or you're
in early recovery or in your recovery but you need a little tune up then I'm going
to put the link in the description to our 30 day jumpstart program that you can sign up for
it is a hundred percent free and it's going to help you jumpstart that recovery self-esteem
process and I'm also going to put a link in the description to our recovery to go program
which is a community built around helping you address these types of situations now up next
I want you to watch that video about changing your expectations because like I said before it is the
third and very important step of building your self-confidence and your self-esteem