Addiction Treatment Center Florida: Keeping Your Addiction Recovery on Track Amidst Holiday Shopping Stress
Addiction recovery is all about maintaining your stresses to exist at a manageable level. Let’s be honest, there’s not a whole lot about the holidays that’s conducive to keeping one’s stress levels in check. An incredibly unnerving part of the holiday season that many don’t realize takes as large a toll on us as it does is the tradition of gift-giving. In the United States, we are all a victim of the ‘more is more’ campaign. It’s all about excess and we experience it from television advertisements to radio spots to every magazine or newspaper we deign to open at the end of the year. Show her how much you love her by buying her this extravagant diamond necklace. Show him how much you appreciate him by buying him the BBQ grill of his dreams. When addiction recovery is centered around maintaining a peaceful, low stress existence, how are you possibly supposed to stay grounded when you are being fed these exaggerated messages by the mainstream media?
The first thing that is incredibly important to keep in mind is that these holiday advertisements are nothing more than clever marketing. And let’s face it, these guys are the best. They really do make you feel like you should buy all of these things, almost like you need them. That is their purpose and they do a fantastic job at it. This can be incredibly angst-causing for someone in addiction recovery for a variety of reasons. For example, in treatment, we’re taught to take active steps towards uncomplicating our lives. We’re taught to celebrate the simplicity, and that does not include trying to come up with a ton of cash at the end of the year to lavish those we love with costly gifts.
The mistake that so many in addiction recovery can make is feeling that it’s their responsibility to thank those who supported them through their disease and subsequent treatment by buying them presents. This can create problems in a couple of different ways. For starters, there are some who cannot afford to buy gifts as much of their time, focus, money and energy is spent on trying to get their lives back on track, and this can cause them to feel depressed or bad about themselves. Depression can be a huge cause for relapse among recovering addicts. Another way can happen even when those who don’t have excess money overextend themselves and buy these gifts anyway on credit, by taking out a loan or borrowing money, therefore putting themselves further into debt which obviously causes more unnecessary stress.
Ben Brafman, LMHC, CAP is the President and CEO of Destination Hope, a licensed dual diagnosis substance abuse treatment center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ben has more than 20 years of experience in the addiction and mental health fields, which led him to develop a combination of innovative treatment protocols at Destination Hope. He has been published on various topics including dual diagnosis and chemical dependency, and gives back to the community by educating other addiction counselors at his Academy for Addiction Professionals.
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