Antidote Home Self-Support Plan
In order to support you in supporting yourself from home, we have put together a simple Antidote Home Self-Support Plan, for you to download and complete, review over time, and update when needed. The plan is intended to help you take the first steps in reducing the negative impact of drugs & Alcohol on your health and well being, as well as helping you focus on the positive impact of making changes.
Please remember that the plan you create will be unique to you, and your goals should center on what changes you feel are both achievable and necessary. This may simply be staying away from substances that have higher harms, implementing harm reduction into your current drug & alcohol use, or taking a break from substances for a short time in order to support your physical & mental health.
Things to consider when completing the Home Self-Support Plan
Setting your goal
The first step you will need to decide on is: what is your overall goal. For some this may be to reduce the amount of drugs & alcohol you are consuming, while for others it may just be taking a break altogether. Whatever you decide, it's important to have an overall goal so that you have something to strive for. When making this decision it might be helpful for you to think about the following questions:
- Have I been able to reduce the amount of drugs & alcohol I take in the past?
- Are there just too many harms associated with the substances I am using?
- Will my mental/physical health improve enough if I continue to have certain drugs or alcohol in my life?
If you can truly be honest with yourself, you are more likely to be successful in reaching your overall goal.
Thinking about change
The cycle of change is a visual tool to help you understand & identify the process of change over time One question to ask your-self is: Where are you on the cycle of change?
You may identify that you are entering the preparation stage of change, whereby you are thinking about what changes you may need to make to reduce the impact of drugs & alcohol on you and your life. The Home Self- Support Plan can help you identify a clear path of action to do this. Implementing your Home Self-Support plan can be seen as the Action stage of the cycle of change, whereby you are taking action to make changes.
Please Note: The Relapse stage is seen as on optional stage on the cycle of stage, meaning that a relapse can sometimes occur to highlight that you may need to make further changes to support you in sticking with your overall goal.
Think S.M.A.R.T
When thinking about the changes you could implement to support your emotional, psychological, & physical health, it might be useful to set S.M.A.R.T goals. This is also one way of ensuring that you are able to achieve what you set out to do, and these small achievements will help keep you motivated in sticking to your overall goal.
Specific - know what you want to change, and have an idea about how you are going to do this.
Measurable - Be clear about the benefit of making this change, and think about the positive impact it will have on your health & well-being.
Attainable - Make sure you are able to achieve whatever goals you decide on, and think about additional support you might need i.e. support of friends etc.
Realistic - Be real about what you can change i,e, if stopping all drugs is unrealistic, then cutting down may be a good place to start.
Time Bound - Have a time frame for starting a goal, and a time frame for reviewing it.
Support with Triggers & Cravings
In order to support your choices of how you will deal with any Triggers & Cravings that may arise for you, we have put together an information page called Dealing with Triggers & Cravings for you to review and use while you are completing your Home Self-Support Plan.
