Learning to Resist Pressure Is Part of Recovery

What a Drug Rehab Should Have: Learning to Resist Pressure

When a person has gotten trapped in drug abuse, it often can be traced back to initially succumbing to pressure from his peers to try something new. Either for the thrill of it or the risk that drugs represent, young people, in particular, can fall into a pattern of doing what they see others doing. One young drug user may convince others to join him. If the other youth are not proofed against this pressure—which may be subtle or may take the form of outright ridicule—they may succumb to this pressure. Maybe they feel they will “fit in” better and be accepted by their peers. It is hard to say no to your friends. They may reject you or reject your friendship or make you feel like an outcast.

However, drug use can be a very difficult pattern to break. Even when one is no longer a teenager, the pattern that started when he was young can continue into his twenties and thirties, progressing to stronger and more addictive drugs. As indulgence becomes a habit and then turns into addiction, cravings for more drugs become the driving force behind just about every decision he makes.

When a person is trying to recover from addiction, he must learn to resist pressure from peers. He must rely on his own decisions to stay sober and not fall into the drug abuse trap once again.

The Skill of Resisting Pressure Can Be Learned in Rehab

According to the World Health Organization’s guidelines, the ability to resist outside pressure is one of the skills that one should learn in recovery. This skill is vital to many smart choices that one will make in his life. He cannot successfully go through life being ruled by what others think. As part of his recovery, making better choices and resisting pressure should be mastered so that he will be able to choose a better path for himself and his family. Recovery requires that he can stably have the strength to resist anything that would lead him back to abusing drugs again.

Narconon Helps a Person Learn to Resist Pressure

Learning to make better choices and resist pressure is part of the life skills component of the Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. The person recovering from drug or alcohol abuse at Narconon will study several courses which help him become a stronger and more stable person. One course teaches him tools he can use to consider the welfare of more people than just himself. He learns how interrelated his family, his community, country, and society as a whole are, and how these aspects of his own survival can guide better choices. He can learn how to choose paths that are constructive rather than destructive for himself, his family, his working environment and other groups to which he belongs.

With this understanding, he can make better decisions more readily, knowing that he will move forward in a more positive direction. Being sure he is doing the right thing can help him resist pressure from others who may want to lead him down a destructive path again.

Pat Went to Narconon and Found Answers to Maintaining Drug-free Life

Pat had been addicted to drugs for thirty years before coming to Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma. She said that she didn’t care about anything and the only thing she lived for was to get and use drugs. The program at Narconon helped her find answers to her drug addiction and she’s maintained her drug-free life for more than six years since completing the program.

Pat’s biggest accomplishment was getting her “whole life back” with the help of Narconon. “Now I could live happily, successfully, a productive, drug-free life. I wake up every morning just wanting to go out there and be alive.” She learned to resist pressure and make good decisions while also fully recovering from drug abuse with the help of the Narconon program.

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Reference:

Conclusions from a United Nations Inter-Agency Meeting, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1999.