Sobriety Strategies: 13 Tips for Staying Sober

Or it can be more elaborate if you thrive on structure, with time blocked off for self-care or activities to ensure boredom doesn’t sneak in and cause you to have cravings. Shame is having negative beliefs about yourself and your self-worth. People in recovery can experience a lot of shame simply for having become addicted in the first place.

• Although not as well known a solution as AA, there are several medications that can help you quit drinking.
• Following that, you get back in the real world, where your life of sobriety is just beginning.
• Staying sober requires a person to dive deeper and begin unraveling why they were using the substance, their triggers for relapse, and how to avoid falling into a pattern of use again.

During inpatient addiction treatment, you might have gone through detox and learned about co-occurring mental health issues related to alcohol and substance use disorders. After treatment, getting back into the real world can be scary. According to the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, the average stay in a sober living program was between 166 and 254 days (at the time of the study). For those with alcohol use disorder, withdrawal is just the first (but very important) step on a long journey to recovery.

I can drive safely after a few drinks

Whether it’s AA, one of the secular alternatives, or an online option, talking to others who are going through the same thing provides important moral support. Calls from your area will be answered by Legacy Healing Center, and network of treatment centers who can be found here  Any treatment center receiving calls from the site is a paid advertiser. Recovery services and support initiatives should be grounded and attuned to the person’s cultural background (values, traditions, and beliefs) to meet the individual’s unique needs.

While staying sober is not quite as simple as just avoiding drinking alcohol, this does play a key part. If you have an alcohol problem, remember that it is not possible for you to drink any amount of alcohol without risking relapse. When you detox, you deal with ridding your body of dependency on drugs or alcohol.

Is It Really Possible to Stay Sober?

Drinking alcohol can create problems in every area of life, including your physical health, mental health, social life, work-life, and overall wellbeing. Make a list of the ways drinking has negatively impacted your life. You may want to reflect on this list when you feel cravings to drink.

• This can be heartbreaking, and leave you facing difficult choices.
• Understand that others may be better positioned to talk to your friend or family member about addiction.
• They could be as grand as completing a course or as mundane as opening a savings account.
• You might need to decline invitations to events if you don’t feel comfortable.

By Buddy T

Buddy T is a writer and founding member of the Online Al-Anon Outreach Committee with decades of experience writing about alcoholism. Because he is a member of a support group that stresses the importance of anonymity at the public level, he does not use his photograph or his real name on this website. Although these new activities are healthy and productive, they can be a stumbling block to lasting recovery if they become a transfer addiction to fill the void left by the original addiction.

Get High (On Exercise)

It is always better to be honest and work on getting the process of recovery started again as quickly as possible. Finally, if you’ve tried self-help strategies and find yourself not able to fully quit drinking, it https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/what-are-sober-living-homes/ may be time to seek professional help. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to stopping alcohol use and treating alcohol misuse, but no matter how severe the issue may seem, recovery is possible for every person.

After all, it is easy to advance if you have a clear idea about  where you are going. The community and society should accept and appreciate the efforts of the person with alcohol use being sober around drinkers disorder to take steps toward recovery. Protecting the rights of people with addictive behaviors against discrimination and oppression is a critical component in the recovery process.

Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Doing so can lessen the times you have cravings and can get your mind off of negative thoughts. Withdrawal symptoms can be mild to severe, depending on your level of addiction and substance abuse disorder. Sometimes, you may not realize your symptoms are due to withdrawal and detox.

• What matters is to develop goals that will help you stay away from alcohol since you have something to do every day.
• Many 12-step programs suggest that sobriety means total abstinence—never using the substance ever again.
• In some cases, medical help may be required to get through alcohol withdrawal.
• Whether you’ve struggled with drug addiction, excessive alcohol use, binge drinking, or any substance use disorder, addiction recovery is a long game.
• You can find support groups that are not 12-Step focused to get sober without AA.
• Having more time and energy might motivate you to continue abstaining from alcohol.
• If you don’t know the person well, simply saying you have to get up early the next morning or you quit for health reasons should be enough.

The adage in many recovery groups is that “if you stay in a barber shop long enough you will probably get a haircut”. This saying points to the belief that the chances of you getting drunk are pretty high if you hang around in places where people get drunk. The same could be said for hanging around with people who often get drunk. To stay sober during events like these, you must first be honest with yourself.

“I Can’t Even Make It Sober One Day”- How to Stay Sober?

Common setbacks to getting and staying sober include withdrawal, craving, and pressure to use substances. Relapse rates for substance use addictions are around 40% to 60%. Setbacks don’t erase progress; they don’t mean you’ve “failed” to stay sober. Regardless of why you decide to change your drinking habits, socializing sober can feel scary.