Recovery Through Motivational Interviewing

Early in recovery, before much else, people tend to sit down and build a personal development plan. It usually covers the practical stuff: how you intend to stay sober, where you want your life to go, the steps you'll take to get there. A smart plan also leaves room for holistic and natural approaches that support a recovering lifestyle. One approach that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves is motivational interviewing.

Rehabs have used motivational interviewing for years, and it works outside of them too. The point of it is to help someone who is sober, or still working toward it, reach the specific goals they've set for their own recovery. If reaching those goals matters to you, it's worth understanding how the process actually functions.

Start with negative consequences, because reducing them is one of the clearest payoffs. Motivational interviewing trains you to build enthusiasm around the interests in your life that are genuinely good for you. The healthy stuff moves to the front. The destructive stuff gets crowded out. Spend less time, or no time, on the activities that hurt you, and the odds of escaping addiction's fallout go up.

Change is the other big piece. For most people in recovery, the whole project is about making healthier choices and then sticking with them. The interviewing process walks you through that: you figure out which changes you want and which ones you actually need, you look hard at what each one involves, and you lay out a plan to bring it about. After the planning comes the doing.

Plenty of recovering addicts drag their feet. They're reluctant to shift their habits, or they can't let go of what came before, and that hesitation creates real trouble down the line. Writing motivational interviewing into your development plan gives you a place to practice staying motivated about your own life. The changes ahead will feel frightening some days. That doesn't make them bad for you. Often it's the opposite.

Goal setting is where the method quietly does a lot of work. It teaches you to break things down into smaller, reachable goals instead of one enormous one. Smaller targets appeal to people in recovery for a simple reason: they build confidence that the thing can actually be done. You hold more control over the outcome, and that feeling is a good one. Progress also shows up faster when the goals are modest, and seeing that progress becomes fuel for the next goal, and eventually the bigger ones.

If you're in recovery, take a moment to feel good about that and be proud of where you are. Haven't found the thing that clicks yet? Motivational interviewing could be a strong place to look. And even if you already have a method that works, nothing stops you from stacking several techniques together as you take on your recovery.

- Cara Gilmore