One common fear that people have when they enter a recovery program is that life without drugs and alcohol will be boring and uneventful. Luckily, this couldn’t be further from the truth!
It may take some time to get used to your new routine, but there are plenty of ways to stay busy in recovery. In fact, you’re likely to find that your sober life is richer and more exciting than you ever could have imagined.
Waypoint Recovery Center’s South Carolina residential drug and alcohol addiction treatment program provides evidence-based care and holistic support to men and women struggling with substance use disorders. Our programs help you build the skills necessary for a sober life, but we understand that graduating from residential treatment can leave you feeling uncertain about what the future will hold.
We provide each client who graduates from residential treatment with a continuum of care plan that includes referrals to appropriate treatment resources in their community. However, the following six tips can also help you ease the transition back to independent living.
There’s more to recovery than simply abstaining from drugs or alcohol. If you don’t address the underlying factors that contributed to the development of your substance use disorder, you risk relapsing or developing a substitute addiction.
Just like an addiction to drugs or alcohol, substitute addictions don’t discriminate based on age, race, gender, or socio-economic status. However, you may be more at risk of developing a substitute addiction if you are impulsive, sensation seeking, and non-conforming. People who have co-occurring mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety may also be especially vulnerable to developing a substitute addiction.
Addiction touches the lives of everyone, including young children. In fact, it’s estimated that about 25% of children under 18 will experience the effects of a family member’s drug or alcohol addiction at some point.
Parents and caregivers often avoid talking about substance abuse with young children in an attempt to protect them, but this approach can backfire. When a child doesn’t understand why a parent, grandparent, older sibling, or loved one can’t simply stop using drugs or alcohol, this can lead to feelings of fear, guilt, anxiety, and shame. These feelings can cause problems in school, social isolation, and an increased risk of developing a substance use disorder as a teen or young adult.
Marriage is never easy, but living with a spouse’s addiction can be extremely difficult. Your spouse may be acting like an entirely different person, and you may feel lost with nowhere to turn.
Although there’s no quick fix for addiction, there’s always hope for recovery. Whether you’re trying to convince your spouse to seek treatment or you’re adjusting to life after he or she has completed residential care, there are several things you can do to support the recovery process.
Thanksgiving may be all about showing gratitude for the blessings you’ve been given, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be grateful all year long. Cultivating an attitude of gratitude can play a vital role in the recovery process.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, serenity and gratitude are viewed as the two most important ingredients for success in the 12-Step program. Although everyone’s experience is different, some of the reasons to be grateful for your newfound sobriety include:
Addiction is considered a chronic illness, which means there is always a potential for relapse. Complacency puts at risk everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve. To stay on the right track, you need to always put your sobriety first.
Making the decision to put your sobriety first doesn’t only mean abstaining from drugs or alcohol, however. At Waypoint Recovery Center’s South Carolina drug and alcohol addiction treatment center, we urge clients to take a holistic view of their recovery. With this approach, every decision you make helps support your desire to stay sober and lead a wellness-focused lifestyle.
Making any major life change can be scary, and deciding to seek treatment for drug or alcohol addiction is one of the biggest changes around. Being afraid to take the first step toward recovery is normal, but you can’t let fear hold you back. Here, we outline some of the most common fears people experience when deciding to seek treatment and explain how you can move past these fears to continue on your recovery journey.
Fear of failure is perhaps the biggest obstacle people face when deciding whether or not to seek treatment. Substance use disorders are considered chronic illnesses. Relapse is considered a normal part of the recovery process.