At any drug and alcohol rehab center there will be things you are unhappy with.  This is true for your life as well.  Before you allow something to upset your day and especially before you open your mouth, there are a few things you should ask yourself.  The first question you might want to ask yourself is, " What exactly am I mad at?"  Once you answer that question follow up with, "Am I really upset with this, or am I upset at something else?"  The purpose of this is to prevent you from unloading on the wrong event or person with the strong intensity.  Often several things go wrong in a day, but it is the last one that we go after with the intent of evening out all the other things that went wrong. 

Once you are sure you know what exactly you are upset about, proceed with the next question.  What exactly would have to change for me to feel different about this?  Sometimes the most effective change is in ourselves.  It involves to stop the expectation of the world to be perfect.  No drug or alcohol rehab program is perfect.  If the change is outside our personal ability to change, and you feel you want to address the issue, you must move on to the third question.  Who is the person who has the power to change this situation?  There is no point complaining to the wrong person.  Often we like to vent on our friends or some poor person in an organization, that cannot possibly make any change in the problem.  If you do not know which person has the authority to make the change, the next step is, who might know who does have the authority?

Once you figure out who you are going to approach, you need to ask yourself the fianl question.  "What is the most effective way I can present my concern to achieve the result I desire?"  Spend some time going over this one.  Think about how you would like to aproached with someone else's concern.  The result of this series of questions is that you will remain in control of your emotions.  You will also have the greatest change for a successful outcome.  If you master this skill while you are in a drug rehab, it will serve you well when you leave.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 9:47 am 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.