One of the most powerful strategies for overcoming opioid dependence is to create a strong sense of accountability. I’ve realized that one of the main reasons I receive a steady stream of coaching clients is due to so many individuals realizing the benefits of having someone hold them accountable.
Of course, plenty of people can quit opioids without accountability.
But I’ve found that accountability significantly increases opioid recovery success rates.
In this article, you’re going to learn:
- What accountability is
- Why accountability is important
- Ways to create accountability
- How to choose the right type of accountability for you
So let’s dive right into this fascinating topic!
What is Accountability?
Accountability is “the fact or condition of being accountable.” Accountable is an adjective which means “answerable for actions or decisions.”
Basically, to hold someone accountable means the person is being asked to explain why they did (or didn’t do) something.
Employees are held accountable for what they do and don’t do at work.
Whenever I had jobs where my boss was out of town and there was no one holding me accountable, I tended to slack off and do the least amount of work possible.
But whenever my boss was there and working with me, I made sure I was working hard and doing my best!
I had someone to answer to, and I didn’t want to let my boss down… or get fired.
Why is Accountability Important?
As humans, we are biologically wired to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. We typically look for and take the path of least resistance in all that we do.
When setting goals and implementing action steps to achieve them, without being accountable to someone, most people end up putting their goals on hold or quitting altogether.
This is easy to do because we don’t have anyone to answer to.
We can rationalize our way out of it with effortless ease.
However, when someone is holding us accountable, our chances of achieving the goal skyrocket.
Here are common reasons this happens:
- We don’t want to let the person down
- We don’t want to look like a failure
- We want to be seen as the type of person that keeps their word
- We want to avoid looking like a flake
- We want to avoid feeling guilt and shame
- We want to act congruently with our decisions
Having accountability is a very helpful resource when it comes to quitting opioids, and it can be the magic ingredient that makes everything else fuse together.
My Story of Accountability
For years I hid my opioid addiction. My parents didn’t know, my friends didn’t know, and my girlfriend that lived with me didn’t even know!
Due to this, every time I tried to quit I failed — or I succeeded — only to relapse weeks or months down the road.
It was just too easy to keep using because no one knew and I didn’t have a single person holding me accountable to quit and stay clean.
This all changed almost 8 years ago.
At the time, I was single and unemployed and had moved back in with my parents.
My dad suspected something, so one day he searched through my phone while I was taking a nap on the couch.
Within a few seconds, he found text messages between me and my heroin dealer!
The gig was finally up.
My parents told me if I wanted to live there, I had to quit, and they said they’d help me with whatever I needed.
I was sneaky and still used a few more times after that, but then I overdosed and almost died, which scared them and me shitless.
At that point, I finally gave up.
Having to get a naloxone shot by an EMT to prevent me from dying was my “ultimate wakeup call.”
Now I embraced the process of quitting opioids for myself, for my daughter, and for my parents.
They held me accountable all day every day while I was detoxing from opioids, and without my parents knowing what I was doing and holding me accountable for quitting, I guarantee it would’ve been much harder for me to quit.
Ways to Create Accountability
There is a superabundance of ways to create accountability. The important concept to learn is to use a method of accountability that you feel would help YOU the most.
We are all different, so what works for one person won’t work for everyone.
Here are some examples of accountability to choose from:
- Have your spouse hold you accountable
- Go to an inpatient treatment program where the doctors and counselors hold you accountable
- Hire a recovery coach to help you come up with a plan to quit and to hold you accountable
- Ask your doctor to hold you accountable
- Ask your psychiatrist to hold you accountable
- Have a best friend that you love and respect hold you accountable
- Go to self-help meetings and ask the group to hold you accountable
- Have an AA or NA sponsor hold you accountable
- Have your church pastor hold you accountable
- Join a Facebook recovery group and ask the members to hold you accountable
- Do a social media post announcing your plan to quit opioids and the date you intend to do it
- Find another person that wants to quit opioids, and see if they want to be your accountability partner
- Have your parents hold you accountable
- Have your children hold you accountable
Along with this comprehensive list, there are also many other ways you can create strong accountability.
Exercise: Write down all of the methods of accountability from the list above that you believe would help you the most. Brainstorm accountability methods that aren’t on this list, but that you’d find helpful. Then write a paragraph or two on why these would help you so much. Commit to creating these methods of accountability, and take joy in the fact that you’ve just significantly increased your chances of succeeding.
Accountability Tip
The most powerful accountability occurs when you have high levels of respect for the person or people that are holding you accountable to quit opioids.
Additionally, when you would feel horrible to let this person or these people down, you now have high levels of accountability and this will help you with follow through.
As I stated at the beginning of this article, people often hire me to be their coach because they know I can help them come up with a great opioid detox and recovery plan, and they respect me and don’t want to let me down.
They spend good money to begin coaching with me, and between the financial investment they’ve made, the strong accountability they have with me, and the coaching skills I bring to the table, this is very often a winning combination.
But as I said, everyone is different.
So coaching is not the best form of accountability for everyone.
Do yourself a big favor and spend a good amount of time really brainstorming on this topic.
If you can create the right type or multiple types of accountability, this will give you the ultimate edge, and it will skyrocket your chances of quitting opioids for good!
Note: Another way to create accountability is to join my online course Ultimate Opiate Detox 4.0. You can write a post explaining your goal to quit opioids, and between myself and over 1,000 other students, you’ll receive a ton of accountability. I’ll guide you, track your progress in the program… and hold you accountable every step of the way.
Once some one is ready to stay clean, accountability is a huge motivator. I say “ready” because until you are truly ready to stop taking opiates, the last thing you want is accountability. My marriage of 13 years might be over simply because having to deal with her means, I would have to be accountable for my actions. So I ignored, created stress, what ever it took to distract her from holding me accountable.
I’m almost a full year from the last time I took a pain pill/opiate. I went through 19 days of treatment followed by 2 months of IOP (kicked out) was told to find a long term maintenance program. They told me that they type of support I needed, they could no longer supply. Best thing that ever happened to me.
Not until I made that call for long term maintenance would I allow anyone, including myself, to be held accountable. That is what I mean by “when they are ready” because it took me detox, inpatient and getting kicked out of IOP before I was truly ready. That whole time, no one checked or asked, “where I was getting my pills from”, no one, they assumed I was dealing or buying all of them. Not until I got rid of that last script, was I ready for accountability. What addict gives up a legal script even during or after treatment. It was my safety parachute or my accountability blocker.
By the way, I have been reading and have emailed a few times for close to 2 years. You always responded and what you write is grounded in real world/real life recovery tips. Thank you, you can and should take some credit for helping me on my journey to get clean and stay clean.
Opiates take accountability or should I say, the caring about being accountable away. It really is the perfect drug if you want to go into hiding, yet live in plain sight. Hell, I was high for my daughters first 9 years of her life, she is almost 11. Not until I got some help did I even hold myself accountable for being a father.
What seemed so far away, in such a short time, I have gone from being around to actually being present/accountable. The changes I see in her because of the changes I have made in me, have been nothing short of a miracle. It started with me holding myself accountable for being a father.
I have soaked up most of what you have written. Your ability to write about issues that addicts face that no one else writes about, if they even mention some of them, is what keeps me coming back to your site and helps me to maintain my sobriety. You touch on issues that addicts have to deal with that basic treatment centers or programs might mention or at best, mention. Every addicts journey to getting clean is different. As much as we are different, their are still core lessons and issues that we all have in common.
Hell, it took inpatient, two loops around an IOP program and not until I held myself accountable for my recovery (got rid of all the excuses),damn good ones by the way, did I really start living my life again. Not until then, could I start to repair some of the damage I had caused.
One of the struggles I still have is this sense of nothing seems as exciting, a sense of not being as happy as I remember being, it’s hard to nail down. I have done my own little survey and every addict except for two alcoholics (have an idea why that is) I asked, agreed, there is a gap, a ceiling affect, I feel enjoyment but it feels like something is missing. Simply put, life isn’t as satisfying as it use to be when I was on opiates. I have studied what long term use does to the brain and how it can be re-wired. In fact, short and long term opiate addicts can recover how their brain functioned, we can even get it to function better then before we started abusing opiates, through training.
I haven’t run into a program or read anyone who really dives into this issue. My little survey of maybe 20 addicts tells me, 90 plus percent of addicts deal with this, this space between happy and what happy use to be. After about 6 months, a couple PAW creepers, as I started to be able to think and cope without my addiction even coming up, that is when I really started to noticed myself saying, there has to be more, is this as exciting as it gets, BORING. This zone or gap is much different then missing my DOC.
I bet any addict you ask or describe this to, will have a different term for it. I have dealt with triggers, dreams, everything we are told might get us to relapse. This feeling of, “Is this it”, “there has to be more”, has been the biggest push/pull to relapsing I have run into. Even after close to a year their is still this underlining feeling.
Here is my best analogy:
Remember when your teacher would hand back your test with your grade on it. Most people who get a 90 to 99 out of a 100 are happy they got an “A”. Some students who got 99 will go up to the teacher and ask if there is a way to get a 100. They aren’t happy/satified with an “A” they want 100.
Addicts are those students. We not only know what it feels like to get 100 but we have been introduced to what it feels like to get 101,2,3,4, 105. We fight this huge battle, make these life style changes, are told we can live a normal life, but will that happy, satisfied, full feeling ever come back? Can an addict be happy with 99? How can we, when we know 100 isn’t really the best result, there are five more points to feel even better.
Is there a name for this issue, have you heard of it? I know this feeling will fade. The highest score I think is possible, NOW, is 103 or 104. I feel opiate addicts will have to learn
Man, I’m 44 years old. I got addicted to OxyContin when I was 28. I got clean at 37 and was clean for 4 years, however I relapsed. Went on 2.5 year run where I switched to Heroin. I was about to go to rehab again, but was picked up by the police. Did 26 days in jail. That was a first for me and hopefully my last. I’m at sober living now and I have 30 days clean today, which I’m very grateful for…..I’m an RN by trade, but have a suspended license. I’m very well educated in opiate addiction and this paws stuff, which I’m experiencing now. I desire to stay clean with every fiber of my being, but paws is difficult. Once I start working and get in a better place financially, I hope to start working w you. I lifted weights most of my life and I totally believe exercise and nutrition are paramount to a success recovery from opiates. However, finances and lack of energy and motivation plague me at this time. Nevertheless, I’m forcing myself to workout. Baby steps! I know about the supplements tht you talk about, just affording them at this time is not possible. Thanks for your work, hope to work w you soon. Shane B
Baby steps are the way to go! I can’t agree more, and soon the baby steps become adult steps, then a slow jog, then a run, then a sprint, and pretty soon you’re soaring like an eagle!
Thank you for all your help. Currently %100 clean and your guides where a HUGE help!!
It’s my absolute pleasure. A HUGE congrats to your inspirational success, and keep up the great work. Thank you as well for the kind feedback.
I have been trying to quit opiates with very little success in fact I am on methadone and I don’t want to be on this anymore but I am not sure of my best first step towards getting me clean