I think we can learn many lessons from my latest guest on the Lisa podcast, no matter who you are or what problems you have in life. My guest was a drug addict and is in training with myself to become a counsellor making our conversation very interesting. The guest has overcome multiple addictions and has experienced cross addictions. We talk about the self and how developing self-worth can be a pathway to overcoming addiction. Below are some of the #lifelessons I took away from the episode. I hope you find them just as interesting and valuable as I have.

Is addiction linked to low self-worth?
My guest suggests that having low self-worth (the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person) can cause people to use drugs.

So drink for him was the solution because it enabled him to “Do life better”. Drugs and alcohol are good at getting rid of low self-worth and insecurity by diluting our reality. They make us feel we are good enough. But we get nothing for free and like everything in life we drink too much and get addicted.

Based on this premise the problem when it comes to recovery is that if we just take away the substance you still have the broken person. The use of drugs and alcohol are just the symptom and we need to cure the infection. So we need to look at changing the personality because it is the person who needs to be fixed. You do this by deploying massive amounts of compassion and self-care which is essential to the raising of self-worth, also by looking inwards in addiction counselling or through journaling and creating space for yourself to reflect.