Why Understanding Your Motivation for Sobriety is Important and Helpful in Recovery
Timothy D. Stein, MFT, CSAT
October 30, 2012
Knowing your motivation for sobriety is really a key to successful ongoing sobriety in recovery from sex addiction. As a sex addict, you have to understand that while there are times that staying sober is easy, there will also be times when staying sober is really hard. These challenging times are experienced in many ways: you are white knuckling it, you are hanging on to sobriety for dear life, your addict mind is trying to convince you that acting out is the better choice, you feel like everything in your life is conspiring against you, you lie awake at night, unable to sleep, almost in cold sweats. These are the moments that you have to get through to hold consistent and successful sobriety. These are the moments that often pull addicts into relapse.
One tool you can use to successfully get through these challenging times is an understanding of what your motivation is for staying sober in the first place. If you can hold onto the “Why” of “Why am I resisting the urge to act out when giving in would be much easier in the moment?,” you have a better chance of holding onto sobriety even when part of you wants to give in. In our work at Willow Tree Counseling, one of the exercises we do at the end of our initial sex addiction treatment group is specifically designed to help the members figure out their motivation for sobriety. This is the last piece of their foundation for consistent sobriety we put in place. Without this piece, the foundation is weak and typically does not withstand the barrage of addictive urges and thoughts.
The motivation for sobriety is different for different people. It does not matter if your motivation matches the motivation of others. What truly matters is that it works for you. For example, my grandfather was addicted to cigarettes and attempted to stop smoking on several occasions but was unsuccessful, partly because he did not have solid motivation. One day at work he announced that he was going to quit smoking and a colleague replied, “Oh sure, you’ve said that before and you always smoke again. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Angry, my grandfather threw his last pack of cigarettes in the garbage and never smoked again. What changed this time? I believe it was his motivation. He was no going to prove “that guy” right! The nobility of your motivation doesn’t matter as long as it works.
There is often a progression of motivation through the early stages of recovery. Often the initial motivation is attached to avoiding consequences such as I don’t want my marriage to end or I don’t want to lose my job. Avoiding a consequence is a great place to start and can be a powerful motivation but, in my experience, it usually isn’t enough for the long-term. Another early motivation is attached to saving face such as if I relapse I might have to tell my wife or group or therapist. Avoiding the process of going back to others an acknowledging the relapse motivates them to hold onto sobriety. Later in recovery, when you have done work around the impact of your addiction on others, motivation often shifts to holding sobriety in order to protect people. One addict identified this motivation as the turning point for him in his ability to hold onto to his sobriety for extended periods of time. He realized that when he acted out he was not there emotionally for his family. It undermined his relationship with his wife. In the long run it hurt his kids. Protecting his family from his addiction became his motivation and allowed him to hold onto his sobriety even when he was having those nights of cold sweats and white knuckles. Ideally, addicts eventually get to a place of motivation where they hold onto their sobriety because they are worth it. They have an internal experience of “I like who I am. I like my relationship with my higher power. I like feeling good about myself. I love myself. I am worth more.” That shift in motivation to a positive sense of who I am and wanting to maintain that is huge.
So in your own recovery take a moment to think about what your motivation is to hang onto your sobriety? What motivation are you going to hang onto that will help you to hold your sobriety even when it is hard, even when part of you doesn’t want to stay sober and relapse seems like the easier option? What is your motivation? It does not matter how noble your motivation is, only that it works. When you have that motivation and can hang onto it, you have a significant foundation in place to support your sobriety and recovery. Figure out your motivation and hang onto it!
