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.
So, you have decided to look into drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Doing research is a great way to make sure that you end up in a program that meets your individual needs. As you research, you may get overwhelmed by the number of different programs and options available. Some places offer group therapy, some dialectical….
Addiction is more than an individual problem. It has repercussions across a broad range of family dynamics with health and social implications that have reached epidemic proportions. According to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” In 2013, an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) illicit drug….
When you make the decision to go to drug rehab, you’re devoting your time, money, and trust into the addiction treatment center, so you need to make sure it’s worth it. To know if you’re choosing the right facility, be sure to ask these seven questions before making the final decision about where to get….
According to a study from the NCBI, “Individuals recovering from addictions frequently cite spirituality as a helpful influence.” Catholic rehab centers can help recovering addicts by providing both traditional treatment methods and holistic ones, combining the benefits of the medical and the spiritual. And, in many ways, these types of facilities can transform your entire….
Alcohol addiction is a chronic disease that can creep up on a person and end up destroying their life if they do not get help. Alcohol addiction will cause a person to have uncontrollable urges to abuse alcohol, and every time a person abuses alcohol they cause damage to their body. According to the National….
You may have discovered your child has an addiction to drugs or alcohol or they may have come to you with that information. No matter how you discovered the truth, you are probably still reeling from it and trying as quickly as possible to find a way for your child to get sober. Of course….
Sometimes it’s not as easy as you would think to recognize the signs of teenage drug abuse but for the parent of a teenager, a firm understanding of the signs and symptoms of drug abuse is vital. If you can recognize the early signs that your teenager may be abusing drugs then you can quickly….
When a person decides to stop drinking alcohol after forming a dependency to it, they will go through withdrawal symptoms. These withdrawal symptoms can be painful and dangerous, which is why most people need help detoxing from alcohol. Common symptoms that people experience when they detox from alcohol include vomiting, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, depression, uncontrollable….
Drug or alcohol addiction is a serious condition that is actually considered a disease but the disease is treatable. When addiction is treated properly, many addicts can go on to live completely normal and fulfilling lives post addiction. A major part of addiction treatment surrounds what is known as relapse prevention. Relapse prevention is a….
Though many states have considered or already have legalized marijuana, republicans, democrats, the President and drug treatment professionals still have mixed feelings as to the true dangers of marijuana use. The battle against drugs, the messages that have been spread for many years to “Say no to drugs” and the legal issues that have derived….
Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Calls to any general helpline (non-facility specific 1-8XX numbers) will be answered or returned by one of the treatment providers listed below, each of which is a paid advertiser:
ARK Behavioral Health
By calling the helpline you agree to the terms of use. We do not receive any commission or fee that is dependent upon which treatment provider a caller chooses. There is no obligation to enter treatment.
