Have you ever considered how you speak to yourself? Have you listened to your inner dialogue and given it a second thought? The way you talk to yourself can have a massive impact on your happiness. Positive affirmations for addicts help improve your perspective on life.
Positive affirmations are simple phrases that you spend some time pondering each day to help bolster your energy and mood. With just a few minutes every day, you could make your addiction recovery more manageable.
Positive Affirmations and Self-Talk
Positive affirmations are typically simple phrases or mantras that you repeat regularly. Spending time choosing and putting energy into these words can help boost your self-esteem. By reinforcing positive messages and beliefs over time, you’ll be able to think more clearly. Also, you’ll have greater control of what you choose to believe.
Take a moment and think about the way you speak to yourself. Are you critical? Kind? Patient? Would you talk to a friend or loved one that way? Would you say those words to a child? If you wouldn’t say it to a loved one or a child, you shouldn’t be saying it to yourself.
Your first thought around a problem shows how your caregivers raised you to think about and perceive things. If you don’t give it a second thought, you follow through on what you learned as a child. If you take time to reconsider your thoughts, that secondary thought process reflects more of who you are currently. You can use positive affirmations for addiction because they teach you to stop living in the past. They allow you to focus on your future.
Do Positive Affirmations Work?
Positive affirmations can work if you choose them practically. They’re different from wishful thinking. You can’t wish yourself sober, but you can choose to believe you’re recovering.
During the acceptance stage of addiction, your brain believes that you still need substances. But that isn’t reality. You’ve worn down that neural pathway and determined that you need something else to feel good. You’ve created a link in your mind.
The reality is that you can change that neural pathway the same way you created it. Every time you choose to believe something positive over something negative, you’re creating new links in your mind. Every time you avoid opening a porn video, you’re building newer, healthier habits. Continually doing this creates different reactions, choices, and triggers.
Using affirmations helps you remember that you’re achieving something with each decision. Rather than looking at the mountain ahead, you’re focusing on each step of your healing journey.
Using positive affirmations as an addict doesn’t change the reality of your addiction. Still, it does change the way you perceive it.
How Positive Affirmations Work for Addicts
There is no magic positive affirmation that works for everyone. Just as your addiction and recovery journey is unique, your affirmation will be too. By choosing an affirmation that resonates and feels good for you, you’ll be able to believe them more with time. Positive affirmations for addicts should be set in the present and look toward the future.
Using “I am” statements will remind you that you are on the journey and remind you of the progress you’ve made. It also helps ground you in the moment so that you only take one step at a time.
It’s like building a new habit. At first, it takes effort and feels uncomfortable. Your brain fights the change. But, with repeated practice and action, you start doing things without thinking.
The same thing will happen when you use affirmations during recovery. Initially, you might feel out of sorts using your affirmation. Over time, it will become almost a knee-jerk reaction.
Examples of Positive Affirmations for Addicts
Choosing the perfect affirmation takes time and patience. Not every phrase will come with the right energy or power for you. Try on different positive affirmations and see which ones carry the most weight and influence for you.
When choosing an affirmation, focus on now and the future you are building.
Examples of positive affirmations for addicts include:
- I deserve great things.
- I am becoming a better version of myself.
- I keep going because I am on the right path.
- I like the person I’m becoming.
- My past has no power over me.
- I am in charge of my own life story.
- I am an imperfect yet worthwhile person.
- I am striving for progress, not perfection.
- My sobriety is a journey, not a destination. Today I will enjoy the journey.
- My life belongs to me, not my addiction.
- When troubled, I can stop, breathe, and reach out for help.
You can also make up your positive affirmation. Whatever resonates with you, go with it. Trust your instincts.
If your mantra works at first, then doesn’t feel helpful anymore, choose a new one. Adapt to your changing needs and be patient.
How to Use Positive Affirmations in Recovery
Creating a regular positive affirmation practice will help you build a healthy routine. Using your affirmations daily for three to five minutes will help you believe them. You can include them in your meditation routine. The key to effective affirmations for addicts is consistency and patience.
Your recovery deserves your time and attention. Spend a few minutes using your affirmations to practice positively speaking to yourself. You don’t need to use them the same way every day. Try using them in different ways to see what works best for you.
Examples of ways to use positive affirmations in recovery include:
- Write them down and read them to yourself
- Say them out loud repeatedly
- Say them while looking at yourself in the mirror
- Tie your affirmation to a movement or power pose
Do your best to choose an affirmation that resonates with you — avoiding stock affirmations that feel hollow.
Using Positive Affirmations in Addiction Recovery
Positive affirmations for addicts are another powerful tool to help you heal. Developing an arsenal of useful tools will help you succeed in lifelong remission from your addiction.
At Begin Again Institute, we help you get to the root cause of your addiction. Doing this makes your recovery tools much more effective. If you’re ready to get treatment for sex addiction, contact us today.
