Online Addiction Counseling Can Help You Stay Sober During COVID-19
Staying sober during COVID-19 is a challenge, which is why online addiction counseling has been created to help! Read below for all the details, and how you can start the journey today!
If you have tried to overcome an addiction personally, you likely know it is hard, maybe impossible. Most of the time, people trying to achieve sobriety on their own find themselves quickly relapsing. Then, the guilt and negative self-talk begin, pushing you further into relapse.
There is a reason that the people who can successfully achieve long-term sobriety seek help through addiction counseling; it helps.
What is Addiction Counseling?
When you attend counseling of any kind, you meet with a professional therapist who specializes in treating your specific issues. If you have an eating disorder, you will benefit from working with an eating disorder specialist. If you have panic attacks, you will benefit from working with a therapist specializing in anxiety disorders.
For addiction, you need to work with someone who specializes in addiction.
Addiction counseling can include individual and group therapy, which allows you to meet with peers trying to stay sober.
Trying to stay sober during COVID-19 makes it hard to attend in-person counseling activities. Therefore, many counseling agencies are providing online addiction counseling.
What is Online Addiction Counseling?
Online addiction counseling is improving services around the world for those struggling with seeking treatment.
Virtual or online treatment is showing great success in helping people stay sober during COVID-19. It allows you to access counseling and various addiction therapies from the comfort of your home, on your personal computer or smartphone.
Online counseling is very similar to in-person counseling. The only difference is that you are communicating through a technological device.
There are several ways it can help you stay sober during a pandemic, however. Below is a list of examples.
Helps You Stay Connected
During a pandemic, you are forced to isolate. In recovery, isolation and feeling lonely is a precursor to relapse.
Online addiction counseling helps you stay sober during COVID-19 because you can connect with therapists and peers daily, multiple times a day if needed. When you are connected with others, you feel more accountable to stay sober.
You have an outlet to express your thoughts and emotions in a safe, confidential place. This can be helpful during a pandemic, which may be causing many ups and downs in your life.
You Get an Education
Knowledge is power! The more educated you are about yourself and your addiction, the more capable you are fighting a relapse. When you don’t understand something like addiction, you don’t know how to avoid it because you don’t see how it can trick you or lure you back into using.
Online addiction counseling is where you can learn about yourself, your triggers, and what you need to avoid to stay sober during COVID-19.
Helps You Stay Mentally Healthy
During a global pandemic, people around the world are feeling unsafe and scared. With so little information about COVID-19 being released to citizens, we can feel more out of control. When trying to stay sober, having these types of emotions can lead to relapse.
Online addiction counseling can help you stay sober during the Coronavirus scare because you can work with mental health professionals to process your emotions.
For example, if you feel anxious, your therapist can offer tips and techniques to help you cope with anxiety properly and avoid using substances again.
There are therapeutic ways to help you prevent emotions from leading you back into an addiction.
Helps You Stay Physically Healthy
Online addiction counseling not only helps your mental health, but it also helps your physical health too. Virtual therapy allows you to check-in with professionals who can assess your overall wellbeing, including your physical state.
Because mental and physical health is directly connected, it’s essential to talk with someone to ensure you remain healthy in both. Depression can lead to body aches and pains, which may be a trigger to relapse. Skin problems, digestive issues, and headaches can all be caused by mental health issues and vice versa.
It’s essential to address all issues with a professional to help you stay sober during COVID-19. You can learn positive activities that promote mental and physical health, like exercise, nutrition, and alternative therapies.
Helps You Set a Routine
For someone to stay sober during COVID-19, routines help, structure helps. Even during a pandemic, you still need to set a routine to prevent relapse when you are asked to remain home.
With online addiction counseling, your therapist can help you structure your days so that all of your time is filled with complementary activities. You can make a list of things you like to do and things you need to do and place them on a schedule each day.
Chores, hobbies, attending online support groups, preparing for sleep, and specific time for uninterrupted sleep are a few things you can add to your daily routine. If you are too busy, then you are too busy to relapse.
The key is to avoid getting bored or having too much free time, which you know can lead to intense cravings. Schedules also help you avoid harmful activities, like watching movies that glamourize the use of drugs and alcohol or playing video games that you once did while high.
You can still have fun, but it must be scheduled into your routine.
Helps You Create a Backup Plan
Being prepared is one of the best ways to prevent relapse. You may have a plan of action for when you feel like drinking or using drugs. You may call your sponsor, call your therapist, or contact a family member.
But what if you cannot reach any of them. What is your backup plan to stay sober during COVID-19?
Working with an online addiction therapist can help you create this backup plan. Together, you can work through every scenario, and you can feel confident that you will be able to overcome all obstacles to maintain sobriety.
The coronavirus is not a reason for relapse.