Causes of Bad Habits in Recovery
There are a number of reasons for why people can fall into bad habits in recovery such as:
* The addictive personality means that people can be more susceptible to falling into this type of behavior. These character traits include; inability to deal with stress, impulsive behavior, and attraction to nonconformity and deviant behavior.
* Those people who become stuck in their recovery will begin to feel uncomfortable. They may try to overcome this discomfort by turning to bad habits.
* Just because the individual has given up alcohol or drugs does not mean that they have eradicated all their maladaptive behaviors such as bad habits. Staying sober is enough of a challenge and most people will wait until they are established in recovery before they begin working on other bad habits (e.g. smoking cigarettes) – the aim of recovery is progress and not perfection right away.
* Some people are prepared to settle for a less than ideal life in recovery. They feel that by giving up alcohol or drugs they have already done enough.
* People just tend to fall into bad habits if they are not observant. For example, the individual may only really notice that they have been eating too much junk food after they’ve put on a significant amount of extra weight.
* Those individuals who have fallen into addiction can hold onto a mistaken belief that if some is good then more is better. This tendency to overdo things leaves them wide open for developing bad habits.