How to use SMART goals to help you in your recovery

When you are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction it can feel very overwhelming to know where to start on your journey. Because drugs and alcohol affect your emotional wellbeing, finding the stability to know what the first step is can be the most difficult part. It can be extremely helpful if you are trying to work on your relationship with drugs or alcohol to have clear goals in mind, because setting goals for yourself is a very helpful motivator. The first step often is to decide where you’d like to be in your relationship with drugs or alcohol, and setting goals is a great way to start to think about how you can improve your life.

When you have goals in relation to your drug or alcohol use, it’s very important that you set your goals in a specific way that will help you to reach them. Setting clear and achievable goals will help you get to where you want to go instead of getting lost in ambiguity. Especially when you are dealing with cravings, withdrawal symptoms, and hangovers, its extremely important that you keep a clear goal in mind to keep reminding you of why you are going through the pain and where you are trying to get to.

I like using SMART goals when working with drug or alcohol use. SMART is an acronym that stands for

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time based

If you set your goals according to this template, they are more likely to be effective motivators and you are more likely to be able to make the progress you are hoping to make.

Specific

Setting a specific goal is important because if you just tell yourself “I should probably stop drinking so much”, it will be very easy to just keep drinking because your goal is not clear or decisive enough. Because drugs and alcohol affect your decision making, any wiggle room in your goals can be exploited by your drug or alcohol affected mind and you will find a way to fudge the numbers or squeeze in another drink. If, on the other hand, you say “I need to stop drinking today”. That is a clear, objective, and specific goal that you can’t really hide from. There is no wiggle room for your alcohol addled mind to convince you that it’s ok to drink more when you have such a clear goal in mind.

Measurable

Being able to measure your success is extremely important so that you can keep track of your progress. Saying “I need to drink less” is undefined, because what is “less”, really? Taking all of the guesswork out of it and saying “I want to drink less than 10 drinks this week” is a clear and objective statement that you can later track to see how you did. Along with making your goals measurable, it's important that you do actually measure your usage. I recommend keeping a note in your phone or on paper where you track your drinking and drug usage so you can have clear and measurable numbers to work with when you set goals for yourself.

Achievable

Setting goals that are actually within reach is important for your success. It's important that you get some quick wins on your recovery journey, and starting with goals you can actually achieve is a great way to do this. If you don’t actually believe you can quit drinking completely right now, don’t set that as a goal for yourself because when you fail you will get discouraged. Instead, try setting a more achievable goal like “I want to not drink any hard liquor this week”, or “I want to limit myself to less than 10 drinks”.

Relevant

Choose goals that are relevant to your well being right now. If you are struggling with your drinking right now, don’t set goals for your cannabis use over the next five years. It can be tempting to want to set lofty large scale goals for your life but sometimes you might miss the simple and immediate goals you need to be setting to help you improve your life today. Set goals that will help you with your current problems and that are the highest priority for you right now.

Time based

It’s important that your goals are tied to a specific timeline. If you set a goal to “cut down on cannabis”, there is no deadline to motivate you to actually act on your goal. Instead, try setting a goal to “smoke no more than twice a week for the next 30 days”. Getting clear on when your goals need to happen, and when they are met, is important for you to actually work towards them. I recommend setting goals of no more than 1 year in early recovery. Starting with a 30 day or one week goal is fine to start, you can always renew your goal once you meet it. If you set a goal to stop drinking forever, though, it can feel too overwhelming and like too big of a goal to meet. Start with a small time frame, and renew and adjust your goals once you meet them.

In conclusion

When battling drug or alcohol addiction, it’s extremely important to be very clear with yourself on what your goals are. Any vagueness or wiggle room will be exploited by your drug and alcohol affected decision making, and you will always find a way to convince yourself its ok to drink or smoke one more. Stop the wishy washy approach and set a clear goal for yourself that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time based.

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If you are struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, or need help setting SMART goals for yourself in your recovery, feel free to reach out. I offer drug and alcohol counseling in Santa Cruz, or anyone in California. Schedule a free and confidential 20 minute phone consultation to see if I could be a good fit to help you.