How Self Efficacy and Addiction Is Related to Each Other

You will experience significant personal growth while in recovery and sober life. You discover helpful ways to deal with stress, anxiety, and depression. You learn responsible financial management and how to live independently. Most importantly, you learn how to make wise decisions that will improve your life.

This personal growth and transformation are not always simple or natural at first. Still, with time and repeated practice, you will build crucial attitudes and perceptions about yourself and your environment that will help you sustain a sober life and a meaningful and satisfying one. Self-efficacy is one example of this.

A Characteristic that Protects Against Addiction

Many people who battle drugs and alcohol find it difficult to quit. Despite the sometimes terrible effects of misuse and addiction, taking substances may often be an effective method to feel better and respond to life’s challenges momentarily.

Many people suffering from addiction and self control no longer enjoy the benefits of their chosen substance. Yet, they continue to use it because it’s their greatest strategy for navigating life’s rough terrain.

And the terrain of life may be pretty challenging — no one is to blame if someone resorts to taking drugs and drinking to cope.

However, the effects of drug addiction are severe. There’s a reason we work so hard to keep our children from drinking and doing drugs; we know the behaviors have far too many harmful consequences for our liking or their safety.

The good news is that a vital quality prevents children and adults alike from addiction and provides them with an alternative method to deal with life’s issues. It’s known as self-efficacy.

What is Self-Efficacy?

Albert Bandura, a psychologist, pioneered self-efficacy. Bandura defined self-efficacy as “people’s belief in their ability to influence events that impact their lives.” he also added that it is “the foundation of human inspiration and motivation and that if people don’t believe that they can achieve desired results through their actions, there is little incentive to do so or to persevere in the face adversity.”

In other words, self-efficacy refers to the extent to which you believe you can accomplish your goals independently. Of course, beautiful things may be achieved with the support of others and by assisting others; nevertheless, if one feels dependent on external aid, self-efficacy diminishes.

What Is the Relationship Between Self Efficacy and Relapse Prevention?

“People with a low sense of self-efficacy…tend to be gloomy, rigid, quick to give up, have low self-esteem, demonstrate learned helplessness, get depressed, and feel fatalistic and hopeless,” according to a New York Times article. Not surprisingly, those who demonstrate these characteristics are more inclined to seek solace in drugs and alcohol.”

This idea is supported by clinical research; an article published in Addictive Behaviors stated that self efficacy and addiction were closely related. Self-efficacy has been found to predict the quantity of alcohol or drugs consumed. More specifically, higher self efficacy and addiction has been linked to fewer episodes of binge drinking, fewer instances of marijuana use, and lower rates of relapse.

Self Efficacy in Addiction Recovery: Its Importance

Self-efficacy is a critical component of addiction treatment because people with high self-efficacy are more likely to manage high-risk circumstances without succumbing to temptation.

Individuals in recovery with the essential abilities and coping techniques are considerably less likely to relapse. If they do, they are more likely to regard the slip as a short setback rather than a complete failure, according to one research published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. In contrast, if a person lacks self-efficacy and relapses, they are significantly more likely to engage in a sequence of bad decisions and a full-fledged relapse.

Many studies have also discovered that self-efficacy is a predictor of treatment outcome and that as a person continues to abstain, their self-efficacy develops.

Self Efficacy in Addiction Recovery: The Obstacles

Several difficulties might obstruct your rehabilitation and development of self-efficacy. Here are some of the most typical roadblocks to addiction recovery:

• Lack of motivation: It’s easy to lose motivation through difficult periods in your rehabilitation. A structured aftercare program or transitional housing program, on the other hand, can assist guarantee that you remain motivated, supported, and directed by peers in recovery. Being with people who have similar aims and seeing them succeed might help you stay inspired to reach your own sobriety goals.
• Lack of honesty: You are far more prone to relapse if you are not honest with yourself and others. It is normal to battle with your sobriety, and many days will be challenging, but keeping honesty and transparency in your relationships is an important element of living life in recovery.
• Lack of commitment: Living a clean life in recovery is a daily commitment that requires hard effort. If you’re serious about your recovery, you’ll have to say goodbye to old friends who are still using, put down the TV remote and attend your recovery meeting, and keep a healthy schedule that will strengthen your long-term sobriety. A lack of dedication can ruin a clean lifestyle, but remaining devoted can help you get through the tough times, including relapse.

How Can We Develop Self-Efficacy?

There aren’t many people who wouldn’t like to have more faith in their capacity to attain their goals. However, people’s ideas on this problem are frequently linked to their fundamental and internal viewpoints on their nature, life, justice, faith, fortune, and fate.

Therapy may assist with deep-seated and harmful ideas about life or oneself, especially in the long run. In the meanwhile, there are several essential things we can do to boost our self-efficacy.

They are as follows:

• Give oneself activities to do throughout the day might help you develop a sense of self-worth and competence.
• Choose to regard bad life events as limited, shifting, universal, and transitory — rather than significant, weighty, particular, and permanent.
• When possible, try to picture your glass as half-full.
• Give yourself and others positive feedback, praises, and praise for particular and expressly stated excellent conduct. This invites more of it – broad, unspecific praise may be empty, unrewarding, and ineffective.
• Pursue a pastime or passion in which you may achieve mastery over time.
• Value your abilities to work hard rather than the outcomes of that labor or whether or not your efforts are recognized by anybody other than you.
• See people achieve great things, whether in a football stadium, a symphony hall, the pages of history, or in their own life. This can help you recognize what is possible for others and yourself.

We not only protect ourselves from addiction by identifying opportunities to accomplish things, rewarding ourselves for putting in the effort to do so, learning skills and pursuits, and admiring and growing from the exploits and efforts of others, but we also do ourselves a considerable service: we begin to make the most of our lives.

Key Takeaway

Addiction may make it difficult to feel good about yourself and your talents, mainly if you dwell on previous errors. Controlling your addiction and self control is a crucial component of the healing process, so finding strategies to strengthen your belief in yourself can help you appreciate your strengths and recognize your progress.

Begin Improving Your Self-Efficacy Right Now

Alcohol or drug addiction is a difficult struggle. But you have the potential to change if you are battling a drug use problem. Many people benefit from caring, competent rehabilitation.

At Haven House Recovery’s Center for addiction recovery in Santa Rosa Beach, FL, we can assist you in safely detoxing from the substance, learning more about the nature of addiction, and modifying your way of thinking to avoid recurrence.

You deserve to understand the truth: your life is within your grasp, and you can make decisions that will lead you exactly where you want to go. Contact us right away to start your recovery journey!