A Daily Strategy for Enduring Withdrawal

One of the Most Important Keys to Healing in Withdrawal

Today I want to share something I’ve come to believe is one of the most important keys for healing, not just from my experience but also from working with others walking through psychiatric drug withdrawal.

After all the therapy training, trauma certifications, and lived experience, the thing that has consistently made a difference is strategy. That might sound strange, like you’re planning a board game, but withdrawal is such severe suffering that it truly takes a strategy just to get through the day.

Why Strategy?

Withdrawal isn't a linear process. What helps at one point might be completely unworkable at another. For example, if you're in the thick of the early days, the “dog days” where you can’t move your body or even imagine doing a task, your strategy for surviving that day is going to be radically different than it will be six months or a year later.

So strategy has to change as you change. It's not about fixing withdrawal in a day. It’s about staying alive today. That is the goal. If you’re still here, you did it. That’s success.

Redefining a “Successful” Day

Before withdrawal, a good day might have meant getting things done, work, chores, workouts, errands. But now? Now you might have to completely blow up your definition of success and rebuild it from the ground up.

In withdrawal, a good day might mean you listened to an audio story that gave you a little hope. Maybe you stood up long enough to make a smoothie. Maybe you managed to read for ten minutes even though it felt impossible to focus. That’s a win.

You might only have one spoon’s worth of energy for the whole day, and maybe you spend it doing one load of laundry, or messaging a withdrawal buddy, or taking a few deep breaths in the backyard. That is not failure. That is survival. That is progress.

Making a Healing Plan

Think of it as building a new rhythm for your days. Plan out the hours in a way that honors where your nervous system is. Maybe it looks like:

• Lying in bed with a comforting audiobook
• Getting up for something nourishing
• Doing one small task like folding clothes or stretching
• Resting again
• Reaching out to someone who gets it

Even if you can only do one thing, that one thing counts. Every hour you get through is one hour closer to healing.

Choosing Life, Hour by Hour

Anything you do that brings even the smallest bit of comfort, regulation, or connection is a win. And sometimes the goal is simply to stay alive. To make it to the end of the day. That’s a good day.

If you can fill your time with things that are doable: walking if you can, stretching if you can’t, dishes if you have the strength. It helps. Connecting with someone, getting outside, or just breathing through a hard moment — all of these things help.

The more you heal, the more you’ll be able to do. Symptoms lessen. Life opens back up. But for now, it’s enough to simply survive.

This Time is Not Wasted

Don’t believe the lie that this is wasted time. This can be a deeply transformative chapter in your life. You’re becoming more compassionate, more present, more grounded. You’re learning what matters and what doesn’t.

Hardship has a way of growing us, if we let it. It doesn’t make the suffering good, but it can bring good out of it. So lean into this strange harvest. You’re learning how to suffer well, how to walk through fire and come out with more softness, more strength.

You Can Do This

If you’re walking through this, I see you. Strategy doesn’t fix the pain, but it gives you something to stand on. And if you can find just one thing today to hold onto, one moment of peace, one kind word, one task completed, then that is enough.

Tomorrow, you try again. And you keep walking forward, one hour at a time.

❤️‍🩹 Joanna