You’ve taken the important step of getting treatment for your addiction and are now in recovery. Now what? With the holidays and other celebrations approaching, staying substance-free might be challenging. Today, we listed down ten tips for staying sober and to help you navigate the post-rehab life.
What Is Sobriety?
The simplest definition of sobriety is not being under the influence of substances. It is also important to understand how the term is used in various contexts. For example, 12-step programs often imply that sobriety equates to total abstinence or never using alcohol or drugs ever again.
Some definitions focus on the recovery journey, which includes building healthy coping mechanisms and routines to support your well-being in the long run. Total abstinence can be a goal, but it is not solely limited to that since setbacks and relapses are common experiences in recovery.
For today’s article, we’ll look at sobriety as a term to refer to the process of getting clean and staying clean, thus being able to navigate life healthily.
10 Tips For Staying Sober
Statistics show that relapse will be part of at least 80% of people trying to stay substance-free. This means relapse is common, and it should not hinder you from still pursuing your sobriety. This also means that it takes more than sheer will to prevent relapse. Here are sobriety tips to help you on your journey.
Commit To Your Recovery
You will feel guilt, disappointment, and other difficult feelings. Negative thoughts and emotions are a huge part of your recovery journey but you will also experience celebrating your wins. Staying substance-free is not an all-or-nothing scenario. One of the most important tips to staying sober is to focus on getting better and learning to push forward despite the difficult days.
Take Care Of Yourself
In connection to the first point, taking good care of yourself will be important in your journey to sobriety. Perhaps this concept calls to mind splurging on things like expensive food, luxurious body, and skin care products, etc. These are also good, for sure, but taking care of yourself sometimes is about the basic things like eating a nutritious meal, getting enough sleep, and resting when you feel tired. Building self-care routines will be helpful in staying substance-free.
Stay Active
Did you know that exercise is considered by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America as an optimal coping mechanism? Multiple studies have shown that exercise provides physical and mental benefits. Besides physical advantages like better balance, higher energy levels, better sleep, etc., exercise triggers your brain to release endorphins, a hormone that stabilizes our moods, reduces our stress levels, and improves our overall wellness.
Learn New Things
Sobriety often creates a void that addiction used to occupy. You need to find new and helpful activities to fill the idle time while you are undergoing treatment or adjusting to post-rehabilitation life. Learning new hobbies and recreational activities or revisiting past interests can help. Exploring your faith or spirituality, creativity, and other aspects of yourself helps build inner strength, stability, and connectedness. These all contribute to how to stop yourself from relapsing.
Pause And Rest
One of our tips for staying sober is learning to pause and rest. Navigating the journey to sobriety is not an easy feat. Knowing when and how to pause, take a deep breath, and rest will help you keep a clear head, especially when things get a little rougher. Regular downtime spent to connect with family, friends, and even yourself will also be necessary, as in our previous point. All these will strengthen you mentally and emotionally to help you manage your day-to-day wins and losses.
Build Safe Connections
A famous saying goes: ‘You are the average of the 5 people around you.’ This means we will eventually be influenced by the people close to us. Suppose your immediate circle is composed of people who are into substances. In that case, you may want to rethink your connections, especially at a time when you are trying to have a healthy relationship with alcohol or other substances. One of the tips for staying sober is to build safe networks that will eventually help you be accountable and provide the support you need, especially in times of crisis.
Seek Support
Asking for help will always be part of our lives, whether we are in addiction recovery or not. Getting in touch with your family physician or your counselor will help you get the right advice as they are trained to understand that everyone’s recovery is not a straight line and it takes time. Talking to licensed professionals with proper training is always to your advantage.
Starting Or Returning To Treatment
Another important idea to staying free or clean and sober is being open to treatment, whether you have been to one before. Treatment programs can help you build the right structure and routines if you don’t have any prior experience with rehab services. For those who have been to sessions, going back to services like outpatient treatments can help address unresolved issues that impede your recovery and help in relapse prevention.
Stay Accountable
Our recovery journeys vary, so ask yourself: what does accountability look like for you? This can be in the form of revisiting or changing your mindset about your own sobriety. Getting rid of your ambivalence toward your treatments and rehabilitation helps. Talking to someone you trust about your progress will always be encouraging. Keeping a recovery journal can also assist in dealing with the problematic emotions and thoughts you might feel while staying substance-free.
Pay It Forward
Being connected to the recovery community and surrounded by people who understand what you are going through means you will have access to plenty of support. You pay it forward and support those who need it through mutual support communities or peer support groups. These communities foster that feeling of connectedness, which helps in the holistic recovery of a person from active addiction or even relapse.
Staying Sober In Long Beach, California
Staying substance-free is not black-and-white. Recovery is a highly nuanced journey. If you are looking for helpful information on staying substance-free, we at Roots Through Recovery are here to help. Here at Roots, we avoid a cookie-cutter view of creating treatment plans for our patients. We approach you or your loved one’s recovery based on specific situations, needs, and goals.
Embrace the culture of wellness with us at Roots, located at the heart of Long Beach–a city that offers a diverse community for healing the mind, body, and spirit. Visit us at 3939 Atlantic Ave, Suite 102, Long Beach, CA 90807, or call 562-249-5706 for immediate assistance.
