Goals for Getting Help Over New Years for Drug Addiction

New Year’s Day is right around the corner, and millions of Americans will be setting goals for themselves to pursue in the coming year. What will your New Year’s resolutions be this year? To lose weight? Make more money? Improve your relationships? Travel more? Quit drugs and alcohol? This last one may not be the most common, but it is certainly one that many people from all walks of life will be making.

It is estimated that more than 20 million people throughout the United States have an addiction problem, a figure greater than the population of all but two states. Many of these people will be waking up on January 1st with a conviction that now is the time to quit using drugs or drinking, that this will be the year that they finally get sober. After however many years of living in the trap of substance abuse, they want to break the chains and put this chapter of their lives behind them. This is the best New Year’s resolution they could make since it can open the door to a new life and a fresh start.

Any of the other goals a person might have for the future will be at risk unless the person is able to quit. Being an addict means that anything else you might want to do or become is uncertain at best or impossible in many cases. The never-ending compulsion to get high or drunk puts everything else in a person’s life in jeopardy, as nothing is as important to an addict as feeding the addiction. Desperation for another fix, unpredictable behavior while under the influence, illness, accidents, arrests or even overdose all pose a threat to one’s ability to get anywhere in life, and it would be unrealistic to expect any degree of long-term success while living as an addict. Wiping the slate clean and putting an end to one’s addiction to drugs or alcohol is a prerequisite to being able to truly move forward in life, and it should absolutely be at the top of any addict’s list of New Year’s resolutions.

Resolve to Get into Rehab 

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they very often fall flat on their face or fail to even launch in the first place. It’s a running joke how many diets, exercise plans or other resolutions disintegrate on January 2nd. This is nowhere more true than in the case of an addict who resolves on New Year’s Day to quit. It’s not just a matter of lack of willpower or follow-through as in the case of many other common resolutions. Instead, the addict who wakes up on the 1st and decides to get clean will in a very short period of time find himself or herself once again feeling an overpowering compulsion to satisfy the cravings and get another fix. To make matters worse, he or she probably has daily habits and routines and a social scene that tend to reinforce the pattern of substance abuse. Getting sober as a New Year’s resolution depends on taking effective action to make sweeping changes.

For the best chances of success, the person really needs to get into an in-patient rehab, off the beaten path and disconnected from the factors that have led the person into drinking or using drugs in the first place. Within a matter of weeks, the addict can sober up, break clean from the cravings and learn the life skills that are necessary to maintain a stable and lasting sobriety. Don’t let getting sober become another failed New Year’s resolution. Get yourself or your loved one into rehab now to set the stage for a truly happy and successful future!