The reason you signed up for a 40 day program was likely because drugs or drinking have caused you severe harm. So your first goal should be to be constantly aware of this damage happening again.

What is your motivation for stopping drugs or drinking now?
1. ___________________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________________________
4. ___________________________________________________________

What new activities will you start this week to replace drugs or drinking?
1. _________________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________________
3. _________________________________________________________
4. _________________________________________________________

Write down 2 or 3 clean people you can contact now to try to start “clean” relationships.
1. _________________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________________
3. _________________________________________________________

Be patient with your new “clean” relationships. You are giving up short term thrills for long term joy. Good people who will help you fight your addiction will be good for you over time.

How to Pray to Fight Addiction

The first thing you say when you pray is the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:9-13 ⁹ After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.¹⁰ Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. ¹³ And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Verses 12 and 13 are key verses for addiction. ¹² And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Our debts, are our sins we have committed. It is wise to confess every sin we commit specifically to God. Yes He knows what you did. But we need to remind ourselves what we did so that we can remind ourselves about the destruction that is always caused by sin. To start to get help from God the key is to repent of our past sins and be determined to change. Now verse 13: And lead us not into temptation.

Key point #1 Pray sincerely every hour “God lead me not into temptation. This is a prayer God loves to answer. If you pray this prayer and also ask God where He wants to lead you, then you are really on to something.

Next you may want to spend 15 minutes praying to be filled with the love of Jesus Christ. We need to spend some time experiencing the Almighty God. He is real and he will answer some of your prayers positively. He loves to answer the prayer to be filled with love because God is love and he wants you to be filled with love the way he is filled with love.

The next question is, will he answer your prayer to quit your addiction? The answer is yes he will, but the question is, when will He do it. If you never ever look back at your addiction and if you have committed to God to never look back, he will answer your prayer today. For 99.2% of people, we want to look back. If you want to look back it will take a lot of prayer to straighten out your thinking until you no longer need to look back. If you still have a stash of booze, drugs or other illicit items that drive your addiction, you are leaving the door open to look back. Get rid of everything that triggers your addiction before you tell God you are done for good. Despite the fact that you probably won’t get an instant miracle you should still prayer several times a day asking God to help you. As you pray you will start to realize that other things lead directly to your addiction. Things like anger, frustration, hopelessness and your refusal to forgive others, etc…

Key point #2 It is important to ask God to help you know what emotions lead to your continued addiction. This is another type of prayer that God loves to answer.

Key point # 3 Have a list of what negative emotions trigger your addiction and pray several times a day that God will help you to start to control them. For example, after thinking and praying about it you realize that your anger problem often is a trigger to your addiction. Now you can attack your anger problem with prayer several times per day. Ask God to help you control your anger. Ask God to take your anger out of you. You don’t get mad because something goes wrong; you get mad because you have the anger in you. We have all known someone who remains cool in a situation where we would have blown a fuse. They remain cool because they are not filled with anger like most of us are. When you discover what emotions tend to trigger your addiction you then pray that God will help you to control these emotions. God will be steadily answering prayers to control your emotions as long as you stay clean. As you see God taking these negative emotions out of your life you will feel a great increase of faith. For me, I don’t get a ton of prayers answered in my life, but when I consistently prayer for God to take my anger away, He starts to take it away and I begin to have more control in all aspects of my life.

Focus on having joy for the week and month – not thrills and excitement today.

Day one of the quit drinking and drugs program has many idea’s. Print whatever you want and share (buttons at the bottom). The day one quit drugs process will begin your exciting new life.

In this program we will follow several people who are trying to quit to see what they try. – Ty, Sue, Tom, Joy and TJ.

Today Ty threw away and got rid of anything that was drug or alcohol related.

Sue is struggling to believe what her new friends at AA are telling her about the destruction booze brings. But she is still paying off that DUI. So she said to herself twice today: drugs and drinking have caused me destruction, they have in the past and they will in the future (unless I quit).

Tom gets bored easily (which leads him right to drugs) so he wrote down what he planned to do today (instead of drugs or drinking). If you use drugs or alcohol for fun you need fun activities to replace drugs or alcohol . If you use drugs or alcohol for excitement you need exciting activities etc.

TJ hit rock bottom so hard that he will do anything to avoid falling back. He printed out the following strategy:

John Lee wrote the following at www.choosehelp.com

“The Four Ds – a Simple Relapse Prevention Strategy

You can (and should) try to avoid cues and triggers but there’s no way to dodge them all; if you’re in recovery – and you want to stay in recovery – you need to learn to cope with cravings.

Cravings come in waves. They feel like they’ll last forever but if you can endure for 20 minutes or so, they always dissipate into nothingness.

And fortunately, the more often you resist those cravings, the weaker they get and the less frequently they bother you.

If you can hold on for just a few minutes, you can sometimes overcome your cravings. To help you with this, here’s an easy-to-remember coping strategy (The Four Ds) to get you safely past the 20 minute danger zone.

The Four Ds

This is a classic relapse prevention technique. The Ds stand for:

1. Delay – Since cravings rise and fall like waves, if you can delay a relapse decision for 20 minutes you’ll generally find the cravings dissipate on their own.
2. Distract – Craving time passes more quickly when engaged in a distracting activity for a few minutes.
3. Deep breathing – Deep breathing exercises help you maintain calm and purpose when cravings hit, keeping you from making rash decisions.
4. Drink a glass of water – Drinking a glass of water relaxes you and sets your purpose. Imagine your cravings as like a runaway train gathering momentum to a disaster. Simple activities like taking a moment to drink a glass of water are like brakes that slow that train!¹

So the next time you feel a craving, remember The Four Ds and avoid a permanent mistake caused by a temporary urge.

Here are 20 solid distraction ideas that will make you feel positive with your goal to get rid of this addiction. Try any or all that make sense to you, or better yet, come up with a list of your own.

You may want to write down a few go-to distraction tasks and keep them on your person (see the example chart at the end of this article). This way you won’t be left scrambling for distraction ideas when already struggling with cravings – you’ll have your ideas planned out and ready to go.

Distraction Ideas for Cravings

1. Take a shower, even if you don’t need one. Scrub hard and turn the water as hot (or cold) as you can stand it. Let it soak into you for a few minutes and by the time you towel dry 20 minutes later you’ll probably feel a lot less tempted to fold.
2. Wash and wax the car
3. Call a friend and talk about their problems (not yours)
4. Clean the fridge, the bathroom or the garage – cleaning anything provides just the right amount of physical exertion and mental distraction – and as an added bonus you feel better after getting it done.²
5. Walk the dog (or just take a walk around the block)
6. Go jogging
7. Do a quick home work-out
8. Meditate or do yoga
9. Play a musical instrument
10. Do a progressive muscle relaxation exercise or write in a journal
11. Catch up on work for a few minutes
12. Prepare an interesting snack and then enjoy it
13. Do a crossword or Sudoku puzzle
14. If you’re tempted to drink or use at home, then get out of the house and go for a drive. This can be a risky. Don’t get in the car if you’ll steer by autopilot to the nearest bar or drug dealer
15. Play a challenging video game
16. Walk out and get a coffee
17. Fix that thing that needs fixing – replace burnt-out light bulbs or dead batteries, etc.

The next time you feel a craving coming on, take a moment to feel it in your body, and then tell yourself that it’s going to pass if you can just wait it out – and then use one of the 20 methods listed above (or any others you can think of) to distract yourself while you wait for that urge to disappear.

1. To avoid an early heart attack and to avoid exacerbating my high blood pressure problem
2. To be a better parent for my child. To avoid breaking a promise to my child that I would not drink/use again
3. To succeed at work (rather than just treading water)
4. To stay married (spouse will divorce me if I keep drinking)

1. If I drink/use now I will wake up at 4 in the morning feeling ashamed.
2. If I drink/use now I will want to drink/use even more severely at this time tomorrow.
3. If I drink/use now I will probably keep drinking/using for months or years.”

“No man or woman is uniformly successful… we must all expect a rather high percentage of failure in the things we attempt.”
Overcoming Addiction Quote by Barnaby Keeney