The Top 5 Things That Will Keep You Sober
April 29th, 2024
By P. Casey Arrillaga, LCSW, LCDC
There is no magic-bullet cure for addiction. Rather than
promise that clients they will automatically stay sober and live out their
dreams if they come to Windmill, we let them know that recovery is hard work,
but it is doable. We tell them that there isn’t an easy fix, but there are a
number of things they can do to dramatically improve their odds. This post will
cover our Top Five list of those actions that help the most.
What We Know So Far
Addiction of any kind is a chronic and potentially relapsing
disease. Whether the addiction is to alcohol, other drugs, gambling, sex and
love, food, shopping, or anything else that helps a person escape themselves, no
matter how long a person has been sober, there is always danger that they will fall
prey again. To make matters worse, when a person re-engages in their addiction,
it often seems to pick up right where is left off, and then things go downhill
from there.
This means that it is of paramount importance that anyone
with an addiction take whatever steps they can to reduce this risk and prevent
relapse. No matter how good the person’s intentions, it is actions that make
all the difference. Thus, each thing on our Top Five list is a concrete action
to be taken, not just an idea thought or talked about.
1. Engage with recovery fellowships.
This has been
shown to be one of the most important factors in recovering from addiction. As
humans, we are profoundly social creatures who thrive when connected and suffer
when we are not. Thus, the social connection and reinforcement of regularly
engaging with others who are also working on their recovery can make all the
difference. In fact, people who engage with recovery fellowships regularly are
twice as likely to stay sober as those who do not. This is equally true if the
person attends meetings of 12 Step groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, SMART
Recovery, LifeRing Secular Recovery, or Women for Sobriety. Whichever
fellowship you choose, going regularly may make the difference between
achieving your goals or not.
2. Regularly talk to others in recovery in between
meetings.
Research shows that recovery fellowship members who get phone
numbers of others from the fellowship and call them between meetings increase
their chances of success. Doing so creates stronger social bonds with people
who share a similar goal, which becomes a great reinforcement to continuing in
recovery. It also provides an opportunity to give and receive feedback from
someone who deeply understands what the caller is experiencing on their recovery
journey.
3. Be of service to others.
Many people who are early
in recovery from addiction struggle to find a sense of belonging and purpose.
Addiction often robs the sufferer of these vital human feelings, leaving the
person more and more isolated and shameful. Service is a way to counter these
feelings, because helping others is the best-known pathway to a sense of
meaning and purpose in life. It can also help self-esteem to see that others
benefit from your presence and what you are doing, however small or simple it
may seem. This is why so many recovery fellowships have all sorts of ways to be
of service at the meetings and in between them. Service should not be limited
to the recovery fellowships, though. There are many opportunities and much need
for service in any community. Look for ways to be helpful and you will be
helped, too.
4. Get to
know yourself better.
Self-exploration may sound scary to someone who has
seen the worst of themselves while in active addiction. Nonetheless, it is very
difficult to recover without such self-knowledge. This is because someone who
doesn’t know or understand themselves well can easily fall into negative
behaviors and not recognize it. Even if they do it is very hard to get a handle
of that behavior without knowing themselves. It is hard to solve any problem
when you don’t really know what is happening. This is why all of the recovery
fellowships strongly encourage their members to learn more about themselves.
Each fellowship has a framework and tools to facilitate this exploration, and there
are many living examples of both how it is done and the resulting benefits
through the more experienced members.
5. Get help in working with what you find.
While
self-exploration is vital, it is not enough all by itself. It is equally
important to work on the things you discover, both healing and changing the
negative while appreciating and reinforcing the positive. This is best done
with help. This is in part because it can be easy to fool ourselves when it
comes to our own thinking. It is also best to have help because many people in
early recovery find they have a lot of negative self-talk, guilt, and shame.
This can feel overwhelming, which can create danger of relapse if left
unchecked. This risk can be averted by talking to someone who is professionally
trained, has recovery experience, or both. Some people in recovery fellowships
say their mind can be like a bad neighborhood, so they try not to go in alone.
One more reason to have someone help process self-reflection is that both
professionals and those who have worked successfully on their own recovery can
provide insights and feedback that the person in recovery could easily miss if
trying to do it all by themselves.
Needless to say, there are many actions that can help in
recovery, so our Top Five list is not meant to be all you need or do. What we
can say for certain is that anyone who does all five and sticks with them will
find their chances of living a great life in recovery go up quite a bit.
The Bottom Line
Recovery from addiction is difficult and takes hard work.
Doing the things on our Top Five list consistently will give anyone who is in
recovery the best chance of getting the life they want.
About The Author
P. Casey Arrillaga is the Team Leader for Education at
Windmill Wellness Ranch, and he is the author of books including “Realistic
Hope: The Family Survival Guide for Facing Alcoholism and Other Addictions”.
