5 Tips To Help You Stay Sober During Recovery
There is nothing easy about recovery from addiction, recovery from drug or alcohol addiction will take a lot of dedication, determination and taking it day by day. Your decision to quit and be on the path of recovery shows that you are ready to start living a happy and sober-free lifestyle but addiction is one of the hardest vices to break and even when things are going great there can always be a temptation to relapse. Regardless, staying sober and having a healthy lifestyle will make you come out better and stronger in the long run.
Whether this is your first couple of months being sober or you have been clean for twenty years, staying sober can be a difficult challenge especially when there are certain dates and celebrations such as new job offers, Christmas, birthdays and more. In the last few years, the concept of drug & alcohol addiction and sobriety has come a long way in society but ultimately there is still a stigma behind being an addict and getting sober. People in recovery from addiction can sometimes feel shame when seeing people from their past or speaking to family or friends as they may comment on your sobriety or share opinions. People even when they believe they are just being courteous may make certain comments about your recovery that you do not want to bring up.
Not only good times can lead to people thinking about relapsing but hard times such as stress, emotions and more can cause former addicts to start craving their chosen substance as a way to cope with these emotions. If you are on the path of sobriety, just remember that you are not alone and you are not less serious about recovery than when you first started by having these thoughts.
Manage Expectations To Celebrate
Whether you are in short-term or long-term recovery from drug or alcohol addiction, you may find it difficult when in social gatherings. You may try to manage expectations by limiting your social gatherings and who you attend gatherings with. You shouldn’t feel bad for turning down certain social gatherings where you feel uncomfortable or experienced certain relapse triggers in the past. Whatever tools you have found successful whether you have adopted them yourself or learnt them through therapy & counselling in rehabilitation, you can use them to stay on the road to recovery.
This does not mean you should attempt to avoid every social gathering as there are many close friends and loved ones who understand your situation and support your recovery who you can have a great time with. There are way more expectations to celebrate during major events and the urges to relapse can be strong but if you manage expectations correctly, you can find that you enjoy these major days without taking any substances.
Handling Stress
Before you started living a sober lifestyle, the main way to cope with your emotions and stress would be by taking either drugs or drinking alcohol. You may in the past turned to one of these as a way to cope with your stress. These substances became a way to manage your emotions but through rehabilitation, you may have found different ways to manage your stress levels and handle it a lot better.
The only problem is when the stress levels may be higher than usual which you weren’t expecting. If so, just take a massive step back, analyse the situation and think of the best way of moving forward. Remember that you have started this journey for a reason and that you became sober for a better and healthier lifestyle. While in rehab, you will learn lots of different methods and find one best suited to your personality with your counsellors and trained staff to handle any stress that could cause you to be tempted to relapse.
Keep A Routine
Structure help gives us a sense of familiarity, control and stability. Having a healthy routine while in recovery can give you a much more fulfilling life. We may find that certain seasons such as the holidays will be full of events where it may affect your daily routine. If your daily routine starts with a walk in the fresh air then continue to do so. A good way of tracking your daily objectives is through a list as it allows you to set out your day and you can re-arrange daily tasks that you normally do at other set times if there are events that you must attend.
You should always aim to have as much as your usual day-to-day life remains in place as a way to keep your routine as one of the main causes of people to relapse is not having a structured schedule as uncertainty breeds anxiety.
Find Support If Needed
Recovery doesn’t have to be a journey that you walk down alone, you can always reach out for support from family or friends or your support groups. There once was an ‘idea’ that you have to battle against addiction by yourself as you don’t want to be seen as a burden but that only leads to isolation and negativity that always contributes to a need to self-medicate. People are starting to understand more about how addiction can affect people and there are always loving communities who have suffered from the same afflictions and can help you with the knowledge they’ve learnt while in recovery.
Remember Why You Started
Often people lose sight, remember why you started living a sober-free lifestyle and that it was to take back control of your life and start being the best version of yourself. You may find that you come across moments where you are tempted but understand that this is part of recovery and life altogether isn’t always plain sailing. You should know why you quit drugs or alcohol and use this motivation as a tool to avoid relapse.
Sobriety is a tool that can help you start achieving goals that you always thought about. If you ever feel tempted to start reusing then just remember why you started in the first place and you can start to take back control. It is not a time to beat yourself up about the past but an exercise in the positives of why you are on this road and the future you can achieve by staying sober.
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