If you’re looking for addiction help, perhaps all you need is to get in touch with the motivating force behind the change you’re looking for. Sometimes all of us need some fuel to get us going, especially if it’s in a new direction. It’s easy to keep going the way you have been. There’s already momentum and built up energy to keep on moving in the same direction.
Remember the Reasons Why
However, with motivation and making a clear decision to move in a new direction, you can create change. It’s true, however, you might need to find the motivation. Perhaps the momentum and the energy of your current lifestyle can keep you stuck where you are. But if you find the motivation to change and if you remember the reasons why you want to finally get sober and stay that way, perhaps that’s the precise addiction help you need. Perhaps with enough motivation, you can finally get yourself into drug treatment.
Here are a few reasons why you might want to get sober…and stay sober:
- I want to be able to climb a set of stairs without gasping for breath
- I want to have a car so I can get around town.
- I want to keep my children.
- I want to have a sense of meaning and purpose in my life.
- I want recognition from other people.
- I want to have something to look forward to.
- I want to feel more connected to other human beings.
- I want to make a difference.
- I want to fulfill my higher calling.
- I want to feel good about myself.
- I want to have a day without disturbing symptoms that drugs and drinking create in me.
- I want to be able to work.
- I want to feel more self-confident.
- I want to be a role model for other people in recovery.
- I want some money in the bank.
- I want to be of service to others and I want to be able to give back to my community.
- I want to be able to have positive relationships with my family.
- I want to be able to remarry.
- I want to be able to feel happiness in my life.
- I want to show the world that I can make this change.
Choices and Behavior is Affected by Motivation
Motivation plays a big role in our choices and behavior. For instance, we have biological needs which produce an internal condition of tension that prompts us to behave in a certain way. For instance, biological needs drive us to action. When we are thirsty, we go and look for water. When we are hungry, we gather food. In primitive days, feeling hunger might have prompted hunting explorations. We are motivated or driven to reduce our needs and stay alive.
But as you can see from the list above, we have more than just biological needs. We have emotional and psychological needs as well. For instance, the researcher Harry Harlow helped prove that there is more to motivation that just satisfying our biological drives. Using monkeys in his experiments, he proved that a loving, comforting touch motivated monkeys more than hunger or thirst. His research later greatly impacted the adoption process and stressed the importance of placing children with parents that can provide contact comfort as quickly as possible.
Need for Affiliation, Achievement, and Power
And then we also have the need for affiliation, achievement, and power. These will also drive us to make certain choices and behave in certain ways. In fact, some of these needs are behind one or two of the wants listed above. Lastly, we might be motivated by incentives. If we want more money in our lives, then we will spend time looking for a job. In the end, experts in psychology have determined that motivation is a result of both the “push” of an internal need or drive and the “pull” of an external rewarding stimulus.
If you’re looking for addiction help, make a list of what’s motivating you to get sober and really acknowledge them. Don’t disregard them. If you want to get sober because you want more money in your life, focus on that and let that be the motivating force that gets you sober and keeps you that way!