Journal

It is important to record your everyday thoughts and feelings, because these hold the clues to how your drug or alcohol problems can be solved. Your current difficulties will be maintained by a number of factors - the way you deal with the events in your life, the self-talk you make internally and the beliefs you hold about yourself will all play a role. To make any changes therefore, you need to become aware of the habitual ways in which your mind works. This is the basis of cognitive therapy.

A regular journal can help you with this.

If you have paid for a package of sessions, you can send your journal entry to your counsellor every day, and each one will be reviewed. This can then help us to recognise any patterns which you may need to change. Here is an example of the journal form which will be provided for you, but don't try filling out this one because the submit button is not active.