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It has become 2020 and it is Dry january. All the more reason for our columnist and expert by experience Mick Boskamp to talk about good intentions.
If anything, I as an addict in it recovery with almost 7 years of being clean & sober on the counter can say something about, then it is about good intentions.
And let me start right away with the bad news: good intentions do not always go well. In fact, according to statistics, more than half of the good intentions have been disposed of after six months. Because that's how I see a good New Year's resolution: as an organ transplant that is seen by the recipient's body as a foreign intruder and is therefore not allowed to participate in the functioning.
That seems like a far-fetched comparison, but I make it conscious, because that's what happens. Take weight loss as a good resolution. Nine times out of ten people go to work without preparation and without a plan. Things are going pretty well at first. Your reward system is in supreme arousal. You've lost a kilo! But after that, that same reward system becomes saturated, you no longer get nice stimuli when you lose another pound, and it comes down to a good plan and good preparation to keep going.
Does that sound familiar? For fellows who have been in recovery for a while, sure enough. You may have tried cold turkey to quit alcohol and / or drugs. Pretty boy or pretty girl if you succeeded. Preparation and a plan are everything when it comes to quitting and making good intentions. Instead of jumping on top of it and saying, “Starting today, I'm going to quit smoking, I'm going to eat only vegetables and oh, I'm going to exercise four times a week too!”, It might be good to agree. mindful instead of mindless to take a break.
During that break you will visualize what the resolutions will bring you. If you lose weight, you feel better about yourself and you have more energy and you are less tired. The same goes for sports and of course also for smoking. Although I do think that a distinction should be made between quitting an addiction (smoking and yes, also excessive and / or sweet food) and starting sports. The similarity between stopping and starting is that you have to change a behavior. And nothing is as difficult as changing your behavior.
I will come back to the latter in my column next time. For now, I wish you the best of 2020!