Addiction and Recovery: How to Catapult Your Recovery to the Next Level by Using A Problems Checklist to Drive Skill Developmen

Early recovery is a time of self-assessment and problem identification. You have to know what is not working in order to begin to fix it. One of the first tasks, right after learning basic craving management techniques is spending the time and energy to identify the roles that chemicals have played in the life of a newly recovering alcoholic/addict. This is especially important since the chemical has occupied so many crucial roles or functions and that removing it from a person's life leaves big, gaping holes in their behavioral repertoire. When you identify the roles previously played by the chemical, you can then identify possible healthy alternatives to replace the roles with. Early on, those replacements are usually simple things like meetings, prayer, meditation, exercise, calling people for help, etc.

The life-changing sophisticated stuff comes a little later. It’s pretty difficult to learn sophisticated living skills when you are hanging on by your fingernails. Although as recovery continues over time and early abstinence techniques are still in use, more time and attention gets devoted to identifying and replacing the old roles of the chemical with healthy alternatives. These new techniques involve in-depth living skills that more and more are pressed into service to solve the most pressing of problems.

Often, by the time that someone finds his way to recovery, he has focused so much on getting the next drug, using it, and getting over it, that he doesn’t have a full grasp of the disarray that his life is truly in. The bills may be stacked up and unpaid. There may be impending court dates. Extended family members may not be speaking to him. He may be unemployed or underemployed. He may lack frustration tolerance and appropriate stress management. He may have inadequate or inappropriate feelings expression behaviors. He may not know how to effectively communicate and problem solve with others. The following problems list can help the recovering person begin to repair the damage caused in his life by addiction. To use this checklist, identify which problems you have, rank them from most pressing to least pressing, taking into account the items as short term and long term goals.

The Problems Checklist
Check the problems on this list that you have currently. Identify whether you look at these items as short term or long term goals. In the “Check” blank, put S for short term and L for long term goals. Rank the ones you identified in terms of most pressing to least pressing, (i.e. #1, #2, #3).

Check Rank
____ ____ Housing, or appropriate place to live
____ ____ Medical or dental problems or need for checkups
____ ____ Regaining custody of children or finding Appropriate childcare
____ ____ Legal and court problems
____ ____ Relationship issues
____ ____ Social network problems (i.e. drug using friends/acquaintances)
____ ____ Feeling management skills
____ ____ Education issues such as going back to school, GED, additional training,etc.
____ ____ Psychological issues like anxiety, depression, mental confusion, mood swings, etc.
____ ____ Lack of structure and time management skills
____ ____ Lack of stress management skills
____ ____ Impatience, lack of frustration tolerance, demand for immediate gratification
____ ____ Lack of self-esteem, self-confidence, or positive identity
____ ____ Shame and guilt about hurting family or need to make amends
____ ____ Poor communication skills and/or poor conflict management skills
____ ____ Other obsessive compulsive behaviors
____ ____ Alienation, not feeling like you fit in, loneliness, isolation
____ ____ Lack of motivation or Procrastination
____ ____ Reliable Transportation
____ ____ Financial concerns or unpaid bills
____ ____ Job training or employment