A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Exercise for Addiction Recovery

Hello, welcome to foster resilience. I'm Dr. Kj Foster and in today's video I'm going to share with you a relapse prevention

exercise

that you can do at home. It is a CBT

exercise

. Cognitive

behavioral

therapy

is what CBT means and CBT is one of the most researched and most used models for relapse prevention they have been around for years and years and years in terms of a way that you can start to address the way you that your thinking affects your behavior so that's what it's about

cognitive

is thinking behavior so it's about how our thinking affects our behavior and that's why these exercises exist, there are hundreds of CBT exercises, but this one in particular is one that I use as part of my relapse prevention program.

I developed a program that combines CBT

cognitive

behavioral

therapy

. with mindfulness-based relapse prevention, so I incorporate mindfulness skills into my relapse prevention program and I also incorporate elements of shame resilience so that you have all three combined in a relapse prevention program, but today I'm sharing with you just one of the CBT exercises that you can do at home and this exercise is for individuals and family members who are in

recovery

because there are triggers and situations, thoughts and feelings that it is important to be aware of in order to become stronger in your

recovery

and This is how I'll explain it to you, this has probably been the best metaphor for what we do in relapse prevention, what the goal of relapse prevention is and that is the metaphor of a minefield, so I want you to imagine a Minefield if you know.

If you go out into this minefield and you don't know where the mines are located, the probability that you will step on one of those minds and explode is quite high, so the goal of relapse prevention is to identify the mind so that you get out. recovery, this new world of recovery is like going out into this minefield and there are so many mines out there that have the potential to blow up our recovery, so the goal of relapse prevention is to identify those minds so that we can know. where are they and can we begin to navigate those minds?

So this exercise will help you do that, whether you're the individual or the family member, and it's an exercise to complete the stem of the sentence, so this is what you're doing. you're going to do, you're going to complete the stem of the sentence I know my sobriety is in trouble when and then complete that or if it works best for you I know my sobriety is in trouble when and you're going to list all the things that you can think of as these are the minds that we are correctly identifying, the potential dangers to our recovery, so you will identify them all and I will give you some examples, maybe it would be like for me, I know. my recovery has problems when I get really angry because anger was something that led to most of my relapses when I struggled with relapses for about five years so that was a big deal and it's still a big deal that I really need be aware of when I'm in that feeling, so it's a feeling, then the thought comes to my mind of, you know, I bet I could probably have one and it would be fine, you know, that thought will come to my mind, so when I take that thought and I follow it and, you know, I start to like to embellish the drink, so I know that my recovery is in trouble and then there is also a behavior, so I know that when I go to certain places or when I pass by places that maybe I used to drinking or hanging out with people I used to drink with and that could potentially jeopardize my recovery, so the umpteenth, those are three examples of feelings, thoughts and behaviors, and if you are the individual who is the family member yourself you know, I know that my recovery my recovery is in trouble   when and that might be something like I know when I start trying to control my loved one   and his recovery program and his recovery program you know, I know that my recovery is in trouble problems or I know my recovery is in trouble when I stop communicating with my support group you know I stop asking for help I know my recovery is in trouble when I'm not focusing on myself I'm not taking care of myself so those are some examples for your loved ones and then you can break it down further so that you can spend as much or as little time on them as you want, but it's about gaining this awareness of identifying the mind so that you can take something. like I know my recovery is in trouble when I'm angry and then I analyze that even more and go, I know I'm angry when or the other one, which is, you know, I know that when I think I can only have one and when I think about that, That comes out of nowhere. just a few examples of how you can break it down even further and something I want you to do immediately after doing this exercise.

This is important because what I'm asking. Basically, what you want to do as part of this exercise is go down to the swamp that you know you're going to go to and look at all of those triggers and cravings that you know that can themselves produce a craving because you're thinking about it you're focusing on it as much as possible. you are writing so it is very important that you do this second part of the exercise which is completing the sentence I know that my recovery is strong when and start writing and listing all these are the areas these are not the minds these are the places that are in that recovery field that you're going to go to for strength so you need to identify what those areas are what are the thoughts and the feelings and the behaviors that give you strength and you know that your recovery is strong when you think these things, you feel these things when you are, you know certain people in certain places, you know that maybe you practice spiritual principles, things like that, so that's The second part of the exercise needs to be completed and hopefully that will help you start to identify those minds and start to be able to navigate your recovery and, as a result, stay safe and stronger.

Well that's all for today, I hope you found it. This information is helpful and if you did could you please give me a thumbs up and if you haven't subscribed to my channel yet definitely click the red Subscribe Now button below and when the bell appears if you click the bell, you will. Receive alerts about all my upcoming videos. I post videos every Monday in the meantime. Have a beautiful and blessed week namaste.