Living Well
Living well and looking after your health isn’t just about taking medication. It's
about looking after other parts of your life too.
The idea of balance
We all hear a lot these days about the need for "balance"—work-life balance,
mind-body balance and so on.
But balance has a special meaning and urgency for people with opioid dependence.
That's because their lives so often have been out of balance. Inability to find
balance can carry special risks for people working to overcome dependence.
Following through
You might think of balance as a nice idea, but one without much meaning for you in the real
world. Not so. There are proven steps you can take— starting today —that can help you
achieve and keep balance in your life. In this section we'll look at the different elements
that make up balance and provide some easy action steps designed to help you find it.
As you work to overcome dependence, it's essential that you don't try to go it alone.
Keeping what you need to keep
At its most basic level, the need for balance is a process of holding on and letting go—holding
on to those things that keep us pointed in the right direction and letting go of those that
take us the wrong way.
Examples are:
Your skills-Are you good with your hands, musically gifted or a good conversationalist?
Build a deck. Take up the guitar. Call a friend. In other words, use your skills to reconnect
with friends, build self confidence and keep from getting bored.
NOTE: Boredom can be especially risky for people overcoming dependence. For some,
the normal pace of life may have become unfamiliar and readjustment may be challenging. Find fun,
safe and interesting ways to spend your free time.
Your motivation-What motivates you to get up in the morning—and stay in treatment?
Is it your family, your own expectations, your job or something else? Whatever it is, name it,
understand it and keep your reason present in your thinking. (Feeling unmotivated? Check out
Staying Motivated.)
Your good habits-Were you a keen runner and rarely missed a workout? Is it your
nature to be always on time or never late? Neat? Organised? Now is the perfect time to dust off
your good habits and make them work for you. The good news is that even if you've let your good
habits slide, they're a fundamental part of you. It's never too late to get them back.
Avoiding what you need to avoid
Examples of things you may want to let go of include:
Your triggers-What's a trigger? A trigger is an outside event or situation that
brings on feelings or thoughts that, for a short time, can make keeping your commitment to
treatment that much more difficult. Some positive feelings and thoughts can also act as triggers
to help you stay with your treatment, often by making you feel unusually strong and in control.
To get a better understanding of your particular triggers—and how to manage them—go to the
Triggers & High-Risk Situations checklist.
High-risk situations-High-risk situations are those that may provoke cravings
and urges that, for a short time, can make keeping your commitment to treatment more difficult.
Avoiding high-risk situations helps you stay on track and pointed toward your goals. But to avoid
them, you first have to learn to recognise them. The
Triggers & High-Risk Situations checklist can help.
Going it alone-Too often, people try to hide their dependence and end up pushing
those closest to them away. Now, as you work to overcome dependence, it's essential that you don't
try to go it alone. Start building the support network you deserve.
Balance is a process of holding on and letting go.
Bringing balance into your life
You've looked at some basic action steps that could help you achieve balance in
your life. Looking deeper, you might discover that Thoughts,
Feelings, old patterns of Behaviour,
Relationships, even Physical
Health can get in the way.
So, the next step to restoring balance is to improve those five intercconnected areas of
our lives-one area at a time. Click on the links below to read more.
Remember: Improve one area, the others also improve!