Saying No

For many people, the most difficult word in the English language is no. No matter how badly we want to say it, this two letter word is nearly impossible to get out in the best of times. Someone asks us to do something for them, and our mind says “no” but what comes out of our mouth is “yes”.

A lot of the time, of course, we should say yes. But this does not mean we should say yes to every little thing that is asked of us. In fact, if we get in the habit of always saying yes, even when we really want to say no, we increase our risk for physical and psychological problems. Research tells us that “submissive behavior”, such as saying yes when we want to say no can:

·         Compromise our immune system

·         Increase our risk for cancer

·         Create ulcers

·         Cause depression

For these reasons alone, it’s important to learn to say no. But there are plenty of other reasons to say “no”, especially for recovering addicts. For starters, feeling anxiety and stress related to commitments we’d rather not have can be a trigger to relapse. Learning to say no can limit the number of triggers in your life, allowing you to focus on recovery.

There are other good reasons for addicts and non-addicts alike to learn to say no:

·         Reduced stress- learning to say no when it is an appropriate response can help reduce the stress of added commitments.

·         Respect- people often will respect you more when you tell them no if you do it politely and stick to your refusal.

·         Time- when we learn to say no to extra things, we have more time to do the things that are important to us. We can spend time cultivating hobbies and working on things that matter (like recovery). We can spend more time with our families and improve relationships.

We are taught from a young age to people-please -- to be helpful, to be friendly, and to say yes when someone makes a request. For this, and many other reasons, saying yes is a much easier than saying no. Saying yes indiscriminately, especially when we’d be better off saying no, can cause us to lose track of the things that are actually important in our lives, like our relationships and recovery. In order to be happy in our lives and successful in recovery, it’s important to learn to say no.