Areas › Low mood and hard feelings › When you use something to cope
If the language of a recovery group puts you off, that is a reason to look for a different group, not a reason to decide that help is not for you.
Programmes vary a lot in how they talk. Some lean on surrender to a higher power, others are built around self-management and practical tools, and people get sober in both. What decides the outcome is mostly whether you keep turning up, so choose for fit rather than for principle, and give two or three a fair trial before you judge.
If you are using something to cope and it has become hard to stop, please speak to a doctor before changing anything.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We shall be sure to guide to Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause (Quran 29:69). Ways is plural there, and what is asked for is the striving.
وَٱلَّذِينَ جَٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَهۡدِيَنَّهُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ
But We shall be sure to guide to Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause: God is with those who do good
Qur’an 29:69read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a study of 318 low-income women offered mindfulness based relapse prevention, satisfaction was high and only about a third finished the programme. That gap between liking something and completing it is the real world problem. It was a single group study with no comparison, so read it as a caution about engagement rather than a measure of the treatment itself.
Amaro H, Spear S, Vallejo Z, Conron K, Black DS. (2014). Feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary outcomes of a mindfulness-based relapse prevention intervention for culturally-diverse, low-income women in substance use disorder treatment.. Substance use & misuse doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A programme only works for as long as you are still walking into the room.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
What you tried at that age is a poor guide to what is in front of your child now. Cannabis today is far stronger than the same word used to mean.
A tablet is not safer because of where it started out. Taken by someone it was never prescribed for, it is simply an unprescribed drug.
There are medicines that make stopping smoking easier, and one of them can sometimes cover a mood or attention problem at the same time. That is a fair thing to ask a doctor about.