Preparing things around you in your environment can go a long way to helping you make changes.

Controlling, reducing or stopping your drug or alcohol use is not as simple as “how strong you are” or “how much do you want it” (Remember this if you are giving yourself a hard time).
Sometimes it’s all the stuff that goes on around you that can have a big impact on how easy or hard it is to change.

You can’t change everything around you but here are some examples of things you can try:

• Get rid of the things that most remind you of using. Bongs, partying photos, empty bottles of booze
• Tell people (that will be supportive) about your plans. Tell them how they can help you. Family and friends and can be really important. Some of them might want to change too if they know you are.
• Likewise, family or friends might need to know what stresses you out so changing isn’t harder than it needs to be. Can you be asked to do less chores for a little bit?
• Think about your phone – who do you want calls from, who do you want to avoid for a while (dealers etc). Do you need to take a break at certain times?
• Can you change the scene for a bit, stay with a relative where you know it’s harder to use? or not go to certain places you know you’ll be tempted.
• Change some things around you so you have some positive things to lean on. If you know cutting down will be hard make sure favourite foods are in the house, or there are some extra things around that will relax you.