Call Us Now
How to Beat Addiction: Your Ultimate Guide to Living a Life Free of Addiction

How to Beat Addiction: Your Ultimate Guide to Living a Life Free of Addiction

Table of Contents

Beating drug addiction is easier said than done. However, it is possible. Living a life free of addiction entails getting to the root of the problem. You might end up with addiction because you’re using it as a way to fill in a void in your life, whether it’s past trauma or shattered dreams and aspirations. It can also be caused by a genetic chemical imbalance in the brain. To beat drug addiction, you need to figure out what made you addicted in the first place.

When it Comes to Treating Addiction, Don’t Limit Yourself

There are also times when trauma isn’t involved and you’ve ended up physically addicted to something almost by accident (as in the case of highly addictive pain killers and other prescription drugs). When it comes to how to beat drug addiction, you need to figure out both the “Whys?” and the “What nows?” as well in order to truly travel the road towards sobriety without tripping on the way.

The Many Types of Rehabilitation Programme

When searching for a way to stop drug addiction, you should get a service that’s internationally recognised and spearheaded by an addiction expert. You want to get a renowned and effective programme that assists addiction recovery in terms of the mental and the physical.

The best addiction treatments are based on years of clinical study and research. What’s more, they should focus on science rather than religion. To wit, here are some interesting contenders for the title of the best way to beat drug addiction. Understanding their strengths and weaknesses will help you achieve your recovery goals.

  • Individualised Therapy: Individualised therapy is a proven method of overcoming addiction wherein rehab centres take into consideration the unique circumstances of the addict in question rather than presuming all addicts can recover from their drug addiction using the same techniques every time. Every individual has different personal issues, different drug uses, and different drug tolerances, so they should be treated on a case-by-case basis.

  • Group Therapy: In comprehensive recovery programmes, you can use both individual and group therapy in order to beat drug addiction or any other type of addiction. With that said, group therapy has certain benefits lacking in individualised therapy, such as sharing between fellow addicts in rehabilitation clinics and support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and the like. The insights from combined therapies can lead to a more complete rehabilitation when all is said and done.

  • 12-Step Method: Alcoholics Anonymous and other group therapy services use the 12-step programme. It involves former addicts helping struggling addicts to get through their rehabilitation through their previous experiences in going through the same programme. The Alcoholics Anonymous version of the 12-step method has a religious bent to it because a pastor came up with it. However, there are secular versions of the same 12 steps. Also, once you’ve gotten back on your feet, you yourself can help out when it comes to how to help someone get off drugs (like becoming a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous or some similar programme).
  • Religious Rehabilitation: Speaking of which, there are religious retreats and rehabilitation programmes in existence for those who are religious that delve deeper into the spiritual aspects of rehabilitation touched upon by the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step method for those who are religious. It also involves confessing your sins, admitting you’re sinful, making amends with those you’ve hurt in the past because of your addiction, coordinating with past sinners towards sobriety, and surrendering yourself to God (or a “Higher Power)”.
  • Clinical Therapy and Detoxification: When it comes to drug addiction, it’s not just psychological. Substances like heroin and opioids require medical detoxification in order to help the patient wean off their drug dependency. With that in mind, when it comes to how to beat drug addiction, the presence of physicians, anti-craving medications, and detoxification of the drug in your system is in order.
  • You need medication-assisted treatment against relapse and the watchful eyes of nurses in order to undergo successful detoxification. If you’re chemically addicted, you can’t help yourself until the remnants of the drug remains in your system. After there isn’t a trace of any of the heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, or some other drug in your system, the more psychological or behavioural parts of your addiction will be taken care of through individualised, group, or 12-step therapy.
  • Dual Diagnosis: Dual diagnosis happens whenever the patient has a pre-existing condition causing or exacerbating his addiction. This is part of individualised therapy since addictions and co-occurring disorders differ from person to person and circumstance to circumstance. Effective drug and alcohol addiction treatment centre is equipped with resources to provide integrative treatment. However, not all dual diagnosis cases are followed in rehab centres, with many turning away addicts that also have conditions on top of their addiction.
  • Cold Turkey: This is not a recommended method and can be dangerous to use on an addict. The cold turkey method involves mostly quitting usage of drugs without the assistance of intervention, anti-craving drugs, clinical detoxification, or any sort of rehab. Sometimes, the addict will use sheer willpower in order to resist using drugs until his body detoxifies itself. Other times, he’ll use a guide or a therapist to assist his cold turkey method of self-cure.
  • Family Therapy: Sometimes, the root of the drug problem is the family environment itself, especially alcoholic parents and their effects on children or teenaged addicts neglected by latchkey parents. While there are rehabilitation services that seclude the addict, there are other rehabs that instead encourage the involvement of the family and counsel them in correcting their issues for the sake of the addict’s recovery from drug addiction.
  • Inpatient Rehabilitation: Inpatient rehabilitation can assist greatly in your quest to beat drug addiction because it involves seclusion in a controlled environment (like in an affordable luxury rehabilitation centre) away from the drugs, people, and environment that enables substance abuse. On top of cutting away drug access, you’ll also be detoxified of the addictive agents in your system and undergo group and individualised therapy.
  • Outpatient Rehabilitation: Outpatient rehabilitation allows you to visit meetings on a daily basis or receive treatment from a willing caregiver (friends and family) that monitors your progress at home. Some addicts opt for the less intense outpatient rehabilitation option because it allows them to continue their everyday life. They don’t have to put their life on hold and they can continue working or schooling while undergoing therapy. However, the sessions are less intense.
  • Aftercare: In order to truly beat addiction, you need to tend to your aftercare as well (which refers to making sure that after you’ve undergone rehab, you keep on living drug-free afterwards). When it comes to how to beat drug addiction, it also includes fighting off relapses and managing triggers. The effectiveness of the rehab can truly be measured by its longevity. A rehab is considered ineffective if it doesn’t last. This is why aftercare and follow-up therapy are important.

What to Look for When Attempting to Beat Addiction

The best programmes for rehabilitating addicts and beating addiction share certain hallmarks or benefits that you should be on the lookout for. It’s hard to sum up the best way to quit drugs because there are so many techniques out there that suit a variety of people.

  • Practical Activities: You should specifically search for programmes with interactive exercises that show you how to outgrow your destructive habits. This is because ultimately kicking off your addiction is up to you. These mental exercises can include group talks, behavioural analysis, development of self-awareness, counselling, and so forth.
  • A Reward System: You should have a rehab with a reward system setup. This will assist in returning motivation in your life. It could be small rewards or big ones. It could mean getting a break or learning more about your progress. In order to beat drug addictions and learn how to quit drugs for good, you should be shown by the rehab that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and there are better things in life than getting high or stoned. Like family. Or ambition. Or success. Or friendships.
  • Resources and Support: Your rehab of choice should come complete with caretakers, medication, therapists, psychologists, books, recovering-addict sponsors guiding you throughout the whole process, and a decent success rate. When it comes to how to beat drug addiction, the completeness of your rehab centre or the depth of experience of your counsellors as well as the support of your family member or partner should be taken into consideration to ensure that you’re getting the full support you need when push comes to shove.
  • Value Formation: Many addicts lose sight of their values due to what drug addiction does to their brains. They tend to suffer from a profound lack of meaning, purpose, dissatisfaction, and emptiness. They might even directly go against their best interests due to the most severe of addiction symptoms, leading them to feel indecision, confusion, and helplessness. They’re essentially unable to move forward with their life. Therefore, reforming their lost values anew in order to rebuild their connection to society and their family as an important part of drug recovery.
  • Motivation: Many addicts are high-functioning ones with great jobs, family and social life. For these people, motivation is more about prioritising what’s important in their lives or helping them realise their potential without resorting on drug dependency to help them achieve their goals. For many other addicts who feel lost or see no direction with their lives, recovery entails for them to reform their values and seek a worthwhile goal to be motivated about. To recover from addiction, an addict must strive to live a purpose-driven life.
  • Taking Responsibility: Getting over an addiction and reprogramming your brain so that you’d eliminate your bad habits requires a lot of responsibility on your part. Addicts should use the tools to combat addiction and persevere in applying them in their daily life. Getting into rehab is just the first step of taking control back into your life.

Rehabilitation for drug addicts involves seeking professional help, studying the lives of reformed addicts and learning from their example, and moving forward with their life one day at a time by establishing a clear vision of what they want in the future.

When their self-sabotaging tendencies hit due to their past addictions, they can use this renewed values to remind them of what they’re struggling for (which could be goals like getting a better connection with family or friends or reaching the fullest potential of their natural talents).

Deciding to Quit Is the Most Important Step

Even when an intervention has taken place on your behalf to quit using drugs (or alcohol or gambling or sex or video games or what-have-you), the choice of quitting drugs and getting into rehab is ultimately yours. It doesn’t matter how rich you are or how successful you are. Just look at Amy Winehouse, Lindsey Lohan, or Charlie Sheen. If anything, their richness has led to them getting enablers that push them further into drug abuse and trouble.

In order to beat drug addiction, you must set a goal to quit. You won’t be able to do it all at once, but even having enough motivation to finish rehab or go through all 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous can be a huge help to you. It’s ultimately up to you to take off the yoke of drugs on your shoulders. Form new relationships with fellow addicts and sponsors, attend meetings, fix relationships with friends/family, and do community service.

Making that first realisation that drugs have taken control of you and you’re not just a drug “user” but a drug abuser is the first step and most important step to recovery. Nothing will begin unless you realise what’s going on first.

Grasping the Reality of Your Drug Addiction

Whether you’re quitting cold turkey or following some sort of inpatient/outpatient rehab programme for drug addiction and substance abuse, you should make a list of drug addiction’s harmful effects on you. Although you’ve probably decided to quit because you’ve realised you don’t want to be under the control of drugs anymore, in order to truly beat drug addiction, you need to truly grasp the gravity of your situation and the importance of becoming sober to prevent relapse.

Even if you already have a vague or solid idea of how drugs are ruining your life, jumpstart your change of behaviour by making that list anyway. Instead of framing the addiction in general terms like it’s destroying your life or how you’re not unleashing your full potential, write down how your life changed when your addiction began. You can type it up on your computer and print it out or write it down with a pen or paper. This will also give you the incentive and resolve to complete the rehab.

Battling Mental Health Issues Along with Drug Addiction

There are many different kinds of addiction. Aside from being addicted to drugs, you can also get psychologically addicted to gambling, sex, shopping, food, alcohol, and nicotine (smoking). In order to conquer them, you need a hands-on, practical guide of overcoming any type of addiction. If you’re suffering from physical addiction to substances instead, you’ll need medication-assisted therapy from affordable luxury rehab centres as your welcome reprieve when push comes to shove.

Dual diagnosis and individualised therapy are viable options for rehabilitation treatment. However, most public rehabs will not be able to and/or are not equip to conduct a dual diagnosis. When these conditions overlapped, clients were often denied treatment for a mental illness until they got clean and sober. Unfortunately, because substance abuse is often driven by an underlying psychiatric disorder, this meant that many people with a dual diagnosis of addiction and a mental disorder never got the help they needed.

Rehab can serve as your ultimate means to become free from drug addiction. Medication helps out in dealing with drug cravings. Psychoanalysis and group therapy allows you to use the experiences of others who are going through the same thing you are dealing with. Focus on getting sober then becoming a better individual when push comes to shove.

Contact The Dawn Rehab in Thailand

Contact us today to get a free consultation. Our affordable rehabilitation centre offers private accommodation, all-inclusive residential treatment programmes and a highly qualified clinical team who are experts in treating drug and alcohol addiction, process addiction, as well as mental health issues such as PTSD, burnout, depression, anxiety and personality disorders.

Scroll to Top