Did you know that less than 10% of people that need substance abuse treatment actually receive it? If you’ve undergone treatment, you know the road to recovery is long and difficult.
You’ve made it this far, so it’s essential to keep up the good work. Learn the best tips for staying sober even in hard times.
Focus on Your Mental Health
Staying sober is easier with a healthy mindset. Your mental health will have a huge impact on your addiction.
If you don’t care for your mental health while you are getting sober and trying to stay sober, your addiction will continue to take over again and again throughout your lifetime.
Going to a mental health treatment center might be the solution you are looking for. These facilities can help patients that need to care for their mental health and substance abuse disorder at the same time.
A health care professional can help you find the right type of treatment that’s right for you.
Learn to Do Fun Things Alone
Knowing how to stay sober involves a lot of spending time with yourself. To avoid temptation, it’s best to learn to do fun things on your own.
It’s much easier to relapse when you don’t have things to do in your daily life. Having a job can help keep your mind off addiction, but there are more fun ways to do this too.
Some ideas to try are:
- Visiting a museum
- Teaching yourself a new instrument
- Having a spa day
- Reading books
- Heading into nature
- Taking up a new hobby
Certain recovery centers, like this facility, offer safe and reliable transportation for patients that want to complete activities on their own.
Prepare to Deal With Triggers
One of the best relapse prevention methods is to prepare to deal with your old triggers. No matter how far along you are in your sober journey, these triggers can still creep up on you.
Staying sober is often supported through proper planning.
For example, if your work colleagues invite you out for a drink, have a pre-scripted response ready. If you see someone in your past from your days of drug abuse, consider calling your sponsor.
Work on Healthy Relationships
Sobriety tips include focusing on your mental health and learning to do things alone, but family involvement is often important to staying sober.
Not all relationships are healthy. Be sure to cut off people who aren’t supportive of your sobriety journey. The quality of the relationships in your life matter.
Never feel guilty for leaving relationships that don’t support your recovery or that don’t make you feel good about yourself. Remove contacts, block on social media, and avoid common hangout places.
Ridding yourself of bad relationships will allow you to focus on the healthy ones in your life.
Your Sobriety Journey: Staying Sober
Your sobriety journey doesn’t end with treatment and medications. It continues with staying sober.
Focusing on your mental health, learning to do fun things alone, preparing to deal with triggers, and working on healthy relationships are keys to staying sober.
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