Much is made in business of the 80/20 rule.  If you haven't heard of it before, this rule brings out the concept that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers.  Interestly enough 80% of your problems come from 20% of your customers as well.  If you are lucky and good it won't be the same 20% that provides most of your business.

If it applies in business, and it most certainly does, why might it not apply in your own life?  When you are in a drug and alcohol rehab center it is the perfect time to look at the behaviors that do not support you.  More to the point you really want to elimenate or change the ones that bring the most chaos and pain to your life.  Stop and think about all the things you do in a day.  Why not jot down a list of the things you do in a day.  Start with getting out of bed.  Showering and brushing your teeth.  Eating breakfast, getting dressed.  Also put down the amount of time it would take you on an average day.  Include reading the newspaper, phoning friends, work, study, housecleaning, watching T.V. and absolutlely everything else you do.

Also put down the amount of time actually spent consuming drugs and alcohol.  Keep track of the actual time you drink or take drugs.  Include the time spent finding and covering up your drug and alcohol use.  For a lot of people something interesting might appear.  If you list all the things we do in a week this list would be quite long.  Then take a red pen or pencil.  Circle the behaviors that are ruining your life and bringing you and your family the most pain and discomfort.  I am willing to hazard a guess that the 80/20 rule would apply.  80% of our problems stress and grief come from only 20% of the negative things we do.

What this really means is that we don't have to change everything about us.  We are not totally screwed up.  Change your worst 20% and you will have profound effects on your life.  Anybody in a good alcohol and drug rehab program can change 20% can't they? Even if you just change 10% of your behaviors you will most likely remove hailf of the problems in your life.  You are telling me you can't change just 10% of the things you do?  Small changes in behavior done with consistentcy will give you a whole new life.  Why not put the 80/20 rule on your side.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.