What Are Tips to Get My “Happy Place” Back?
A new study has been looking at how to best support people in recovery from prescription painkillers, opiates, and heroin. It is possible to restore the body’s natural reward system, which gets hijacked in addiction. Finding that baseline ‘happy place’ can be tricky but necessary to supporting long-term recovery.
Quest for Joy
Once in recovery, it may take awhile for the mind and body to adjust to life without a stream of drugs in your system to cope. That feeling won’t last forever. It might feel this way but it won’t. People who withdraw from opiates may have a reduced response to pleasurable activities, including food and friendship. They also experience a more heightened response to drug-related stimuli. This is thought to occur because opiates are potent stimulators of the brain’s reward system. Over time, the brain adapts to high levels of stimulation provided by opiates and naturally rewarding stimuli cannot measure up.
Time Heals
What is good about getting back to a happy place is that the body’s natural response system kicks in eventually when substances leave the body. When compared to people who are drug-free, those who have been without substances for several months have lower levels of cortisol and practically no sleep disturbances. If the person remains in treatment and off drugs for some months, the body’s natural reward system can return to normal, making it easier to stay off drugs in treatment and recovery. Of course, the brain needs time but it also needs space to recover.
Added incentives for kicking addiction so you can find a happy place are that your brain wants to return to normal. It just needs you to make a decision to stop using drugs to get there. With some help, you may be able to assist it with mental health counseling and medication if your brain cannot recover its happy place post detox. Your happy place is really all about feeling good again, feeling happy, and being in a place where you feel most aligned with your purpose and goals you want to accomplish. It may be simple pleasures you look forward to but it is less about the big stuff and more about the little things that can help you feel good again.
For more than 25 years, Palmetto Addiction Recovery Center has been devoted to helping those who are struggling, to find serenity and recover. With a focus on holistic treatment for the physical, emotional, and spiritual, our program effectively rebuilds and heals what has been broken by addiction. For information on our addiction treatment program in Louisiana, call us today: 866-848-3001
