A DUI charge feels like a big knockdown—you may find yourself frequently upset, unmotivated, and unable to shake your frustration with yourself and the world around you. Healing from this kind of event takes time and effort, but is well worth the results.
Take Responsibility
The first step to any recovery is to acknowledge your accountability. Your first reaction may be to defend every little element that lead you to the event in question, attempting to justify and displace blame. This is natural! Guilt is a feeling that we want to reject at all costs. However, if you are to move forward from the damages of your action, you have to accept the responsibility and feel that remorse—it will serve as motivation and determination to improve. Acceptance of these hard things will instill more humility into your mind, encouraging you towards seeking help for getting better and being better.
Seek Guidance
It is imperative to seek guidance when you are dealing with a DUI. Your thoughts can spiral into an unproductive, unhealthy mess of self-loathing and bitterness. Counseling provides an outlet for those thoughts within a safe setting that validates and teaches coping methods. Furthermore, trained counselors can help you realize the roots of your problems and suggest ways that you can progress towards the goals you have for yourself. This is healing! Improving your perspective of yourself, promoting productive practices of development, and increasing your belief in your own improvement. Consider group therapy as well as individual counseling sessions; group therapy may give you a place to feel related to, understood, and can create a support system to help you along your path to recovery.
Avoid Harmful Triggers
As you heal, you may encounter the very things that caused you harm in the first place. Until you have developed the strength and understanding to withstand the negative feelings associated with that trigger (feelings of fear, temptation, lack of control, even failure), you need to avoid them. Establish a way to disconnect yourself from whatever the issue is. Find a friend you can call to talk you through frustration. Carry around something to motivate you towards continued improvement. Best of all, try to keep yourself from entering situations that you know may expose you to those things that have caused so much damage in the past.
Accepting responsibility for your choices, seeking help from professionals and friends, and avoiding encounters with the things that have hurt you will set you on the path you want towards healing.
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