Addiction recovery is a life-long journey. It is commendable to seek help for your addiction and to leave behind what you know to recover. At Avalon Malibu, we know there can be a connection between low self-esteem and addiction. Therefore, it can be critical to work on building self-esteem in recovery. Self-esteem is how you value and perceive yourself. It may feel uncomfortable to work on building self-esteem, but treatment can be a safe place to begin building your self-esteem to ensure you have a long-term recovery.
Building Self-Esteem in Therapy
We know addiction recovery and treatment can feel intimidating. Addiction can take away many aspects of your life, but recovery can renew your life and open doors to new opportunities. Addiction recovery with Avalon Malibu can include a variety of therapies that can build your self-esteem. We believe we can help you with an individualized treatment plan. Our methods treat the mind, body, and spirit with group and one-on-one therapies.
Therapy is a safe space to work on building your self-esteem. An article written by Joseph A. Bailey in May of 2003 and published in the Journal of the National Medicine Association defines self-esteem as follows, “Self-esteem is a simplistic term for varied and complex mental states pertaining to how one views oneself.”
Some examples of benefits therapy can provide you as you build self-esteem include processing traumas, challenging thoughts, healing your relationships, and learning new coping skills. These few examples can help build your self-esteem over time. You may be wondering why therapy can help build your self-esteem. When you explore and heal your mental health, you can learn how to navigate life in new and healthy ways. This can help you feel good about how you are interacting in the world and about who you are as a person.
Importance of Building Self-Esteem in Addiction Recovery
Long-term recovery from addiction is possible. In seeking treatment for your addiction with Avalon Malibu, we can support you in learning how to set yourself up for success. Building your self-esteem can be one way we can help you in this endeavor. When you have a higher self-esteem, you are likely to make choices for your recovery that align with your sobriety. For example, if a trigger were to arise, self-esteem can help you have the confidence to navigate the trigger healthily.
An article published in the journal Addiction and Health written by Hamid Reza Alavi in 2011 says the following about self-esteem:
Self-esteem is the reflection of the understanding of oneself and sense of personal value. Our perceptions toward ourselves (the ego) are developed through the process of acting, and then thinking about our actions as well as how others perceive those actions. Self-esteem refers to our feelings about ourselves or the value we have for ourselves. In fact, it can be said that self-esteem is a general judgment about ourselves.
This article found that there was a significant connection between self-esteem and addiction. Those with higher self-esteem were less likely to struggle with addiction. From this, we can conclude that building self-esteem is of great importance in addiction recovery.
Building your self-esteem in addiction recovery can be applied to everyday tasks. Typically, in treatment, there will be a daily schedule to follow. As you work through the program and interact in therapy and with peers, you may notice that daily tasks shift, too. This can look like feeling confident to speak up and set boundaries or interjecting and stating your opinion on a topic. Building your self-esteem can affect many areas of your life positively.
Gaining Trust in Your Abilities
An important piece of building self-esteem is gaining trust in your abilities. This can be applied to a wide range of aspects of your life, including your addiction recovery. When you have put work into building your self-esteem, you may notice your confidence will grow as well. In terms of your recovery, when you are feeling more confident, you could be more likely to make recovery-focused choices. For example, after being discharged from treatment, it will be important to continue working with a therapist. Following your aftercare plan is also crucial to a successful long-term recovery. Feeling confident in yourself can help ensure you follow through with these types of decisions.
Ultimately, at Avalon Malibu, we believe everyone can recover from addiction. However, you must believe you can recover from your addiction, too. Working on building your self-esteem can help give you confidence in your ability to do so. Gaining trust in your ability to recover could be a process that takes time. It could be important to remember that you may not necessarily notice a drastic change in your self-esteem overnight. It is important to keep working at it, though, and to not give up.
At Avalon Malibu, we know that there is a connection between low self-esteem and addiction. This means it can be even more crucial to your addiction recovery that you work on building your self-esteem in treatment. Self-esteem can affect many areas of your life, and treatment can be a safe space to begin the process of building stronger self-esteem to ensure you have the opportunity to recover successfully. We believe we can help you with the variety of therapies that we offer. Everyone deserves to recover from addiction, and we want to help you. Please call (844) 857-5992 for more information on how Avalon Malibu can assist you in beginning your recovery journey today.
