When you start drug and alcohol treatment, it can feel overwhelming. You may be at a rehab center, surrounded by people you don’t know, telling you things you don’t care about. While you want to get sober, you may feel lost and like you’re never really going to get it.
Instead of getting down on yourself, it’s time to step up and fake it until you make it.
What Faking It Til You Make It Really Means
When starting out in recovery, you may hear this saying a lot, and that’s because it’s designed to give you the opportunity to stop going back to your old, destructive habits even when you’re not sure of another way. Starting out in treatment and the 12-step programs can leave you confused. You may not be comfortable in meetings, you don’t know the steps, and you feel like an outsider.
It can take a while to understand or see results from attending treatment, but it’s important you do it anyway.
But so does everyone in the beginning. Instead of throwing in the towel and giving up, the 12-steps encourage you to fake it until you make it. This doesn’t mean that you should pretend and just go through the motions. Instead, it means to just do it. Go to meetings. Follow the steps. Even when you’re not sure of what you’re doing. As time moves by, you’ll start to see progress and the program beginning to work.
If you need drug or alcohol addiction treatment, call 800-481-6320Who Answers? to find help.
What It Doesn’t Mean
Some people take the “fake it until you make it” slogan as a way to not commit to recovery, and that’s why some suggest changing to “do it until you get it.” When you first start your journey to sobriety, you still need to be open and receptive to change. You still need to go to meetings. You need to participate. You need to learn about the 12-steps and how to incorporate them into your life.
Basically, you need to go through the motions even if you don’t quite understand why. That’s what faking it until you make it means.
Science Says It Works
While AA and other 12-step programs have been saying fake it until you make it for decades, science has shown that it works. When you fake a positive outlook, you tend to move in the direction you pretend to be going. For instance, when people put on a fake smile and pretend to be happy, chance are they’ll become happy and then the smile is no longer fake. And that’s exactly what the 12-steps is hoping for. You make a commitment. You go through the motions. And soon, you reap the benefits and no longer have to fake it, because you know it works.
For those who continually struggle with chronic relapses, making the commitment to fake it until you make it may be just what they need. It gives them the ability to get through the first few months of recovery with a place to go and a built-in support system, and may keep them from falling into self-defeating behaviors.
If you or someone you love is ready to get addiction treatment, but you don’t know where to turn, call 800-481-6320Who Answers? for help today.
Opiate addiction is one of the most serious substance abuse disorders affecting the country today; millions are abusing both illicit and prescription-based opioid drugs. In order to make a change and put an end to your opioid abuse, call now to find rehab centers that will provide safe, reliable care and to find out how….
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, when you relapse it is not a failure. Drug addiction is a chronic disease that needs to be treated as such. Relapse is a fact of drug addiction treatment. Not all programs suit all addictions and it is very important that a program be personalized for your….
Art therapy, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is a nontraditional type of therapeutic modality that is considered to be “not only compatible with but also essential to the success of treatment” for many individuals in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction. Art therapy can be extremely beneficial to rehab patients in many….
If you or a loved one are going through the struggles of drug addiction, this can be a very confusing and complicated time. It can be particularly severe if the addict is also facing a mental health issue as well, as the two together can present extra challenges and potential risks. What is Comorbidity? Comorbidity….
Teenagers and Drug Addiction Teenage drug abuse and addiction is very high in the United States, and addiction is a lifelong brain disease that a person will struggle with. Many teens do not understand the negative consequences that follow drug use, and they think that they will not become addicted, but drugs such as opiates,….
In many cases, it is necessary for a person to attend inpatient drug rehab. Perhaps the drug the individual was abusing has caused them severe physical or psychological issues or they are in need of 24-hour surveillance and care. For whatever reason, inpatient care can be necessary, but it may also cause a patient to….
Most rehab centers use a combination of individual and group therapy to provide an effective approach to addiction treatment. With group therapy being the foundation for most recovery models, one may wonder what it is that makes this type of therapy so important in all types of addiction treatment. While therapy can be helpful for….
Free rehab facilities can be found all over the country, and patients who would otherwise not be able to afford inpatient rehab (or even outpatient rehab) can benefit from this treatment. There are also many facilities which do not offer completely free treatment but allow patients to pay either on a sliding scale or a….
There are many types of rehab centers and almost anyone can benefit from one of those types. Rehab programs range from addiction treatment to rehabilitation for most mental and physical disorders. These benefits range depending on the specific type of rehab center you are entering. There are however some benefits that are common to all….
It seems every addict has suffered from denial at one point or another. Drug addiction, an inability to admit to it and the fact that it’s difficult to believe all make denying one’s own drug addiction a much easier thing to do than to cope with, confront and admit to the problem. You’ve heard it,….
Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Additional calls will also be forwarded and returned by one of our treatment partners below.
Calls to any general helpline (non-facility specific 1-8XX numbers) for your visit will be answered by ARK Behavioral Health, a paid advertiser on RehabCenters.com.
