Addiction counselors often have their patients write a “goodbye letter” to their addiction. What’s the purpose of this letter? Does it help? What are some of the key parts of an addiction goodbye letter? These are issues covered in this post. Read on for more information.

How Does a Goodbye Letter to Addiction Help the Patient?

These goodbye letters can do many things for patients. For example, many patients don’t understand why they can’t control their urges to consume an addictive substance. They think the problem is that they don’t have enough willpower. In reality, the problem isn’t a lack of willpower, but a lack of understanding of the issue.

By writing the goodbye letter, they can clarify what causes their addiction. This is part of the power of putting thoughts down onto paper. But it does more than simply uncover causes. By writing a declaration to break the addiction, the patient is creating a strong contract with themselves.

Through writing this goodbye letter, patients often identify potential triggers for relapses. By understanding these triggers, the patients reduce their risk of relapse.

It Wasn’t All Bad

Just as with the end of a relationship, patients look back on their addictions and realize it wasn’t all bad. They had some great times while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Some patients may believe the addictive substance was good for them. And with some addictive substances, the message of whether drugs are good or bad is increasingly confusing.

The message has always been that drugs are bad. The same sources say alcohol is bad only when consumed in excess. The government once thought illegal drugs had no medical use. Laws are quickly changing across the nation as researchers find medical uses for these drugs.

The common belief was that people consumed illegal drugs for their personal recreation. We now know that many users who later became addicts were actually self-medicating. For example, alcohol can ease social anxiety and nicotine improves concentration. Is it any wonder why people with ADHD are twice as likely to be smokers as the general population?

Therapeutic uses are being found for magic mushrooms, MDMA (ecstasy), and marijuana. Doctors know opiates are effective pain relievers. So all these drugs are good, right? It’s confusing to have so many mixed messages. The addict hears throughout their lives how bad all drugs are, then they try them and find out the high is better than the negative effects, at least at first.. And the addiction process starts.

The Underlying Mindset

Sometimes addiction occurs through people being completely irresponsible. They take drugs for the fun of it and eventually find themselves hooked. Many patients are down on themselves because they think this is what they have done. When often, the reality is they were self-medicating for an underlying condition.

A patient with ADHD may have gone undiagnosed throughout their lives. But they knew they could focus better after a cigarette. The problem is that cigarettes are a terrible way to consume nicotine, as there’s a quick reward and a quick drop in the effect. This makes them extremely addictive. And every time the patient smokes, they’re damaging their lungs.

The world isn’t black and white. Everything occurs to a degree. Using cigarettes as an example, through writing the goodbye letter to addiction, the patient realizes cigarettes helped with a problem, but the net effect was negative. Now they know they need treatment to get off nicotine and also need to treat their ADHD with one of the more effective drugs available — drugs that also aren’t addictive.

This is an example, using a relatively mild drug, of what the patient can discover through their goodbye letter. What about something ‘stronger’, like heroin?? Heroin did something for the patient, or else they wouldn’t have used it a second time. By writing about it in their goodbye letter to addiction, the patient can learn more about themselves.

Of course, the downside of heroin is even worse than cigarettes. Drug dealers often lace their products with even more dangerous drugs like fentanyl. It’s easy to find the net negative without preaching that the drug did nothing for the patient.