Living a Sober Lifestyle: Getting Clean and Staying Clean

Eventually (though there are times it doesn’t feel like it), your neurochemistry readjusts. Your ability to remember things improves and the fogginess of drinking dissipates. And there are days that make you contemplate shoving a fist through the wall. Hair-tearing days that make you question the value of sobriety. Everyone’s sober journey is different, but the general consensus among the thousands who have traveled this path is that it’s a mixed bag. But that’s not how it works, and that heavy realization has been known to spark a relapse or two among the newly recovered, myself included.

You’re more likely to surround yourself with other people who also misuse substances, and that can mean you never really get to know people without the influence of these substances. Romantic relationships may also be built on the use of drugs or alcohol, and frequently become toxic. When you’re using drugs or alcohol, you can feel like you’re skating through life, but never really feeling or being in any of the moments.

Is It Really Possible to Live Life Completely Sober?

Under certain conditions, alcohol can negatively affect our bodies and personal relationships. However, in today’s culture, drinking alcohol is often encouraged in social settings, which can lead to becoming reliant on it and, in some cases, dependent on it. Being sober curious may help provide insight into how you relate to alcohol. Interviews sober living blog will elicit their knowledge about addiction, recovery, and community based recovery houses such as SLHs. We hypothesize that barriers to expansion of SLHs might vary by stakeholder groups. Drug and alcohol administrators and operators of houses might therefore need different strategies to address the concerns of different stakeholders.

Without drugs or alcohol, you will begin to understand feelings of appreciation, love, support, joy, connection. You will create moments with loved ones, remember them, and hold them closely. You will shape a life that is worth living— a life that is mentally, psychologically, and physically positive. Sober relationships will be a key factor in your recovery journey. They will show you that you do not need to drink to socialize and you do not need to be intoxicated to have fun.

Primary Outcomes

It prompted the reader to reevaluate their relationship with alcohol and explore their sober curiosity. A few years later, she releasedThe Sober Curious Reset, a workbook with 100 days of daily prompts to help change the way you drink. For me, 100 days was the perfect time for me to understand my relationship with alcohol. There were some bumps in the road, but I began to feel the joy of a substance-free life in three months. In other words, instead of saying, “stop thinking about how far it is to the liquor store,” imagine you walk down there, buy the bottle of vodka, come home and start drinking. Imagine your sober streak disappearing and finishing the bottle that night.

Some residents probably benefit from the mandate that they attend outpatient treatment during the day and comply with a curfew in the evening. For some individuals, the limited structure offered by freestanding SLHs could invite association with substance using friends and family and thus precipitate relapse. This could be particularly problematic in poor communities where residents have easy access to substances and people who use them. Second is to expand on these findings by considering potential implications of our research for inpatient and outpatient treatment and for criminal justice systems.

Schedule Time, Not To-Dos

But because of my mom, I see that you can enjoy yourself just as much without alcohol. For now, I want to share three inspirations that form the cornerstones of how I live into my sobriety. One of the final projects in my master’s program was to develop a family genogram . After an hour-long fact-finding conversation with my mom, I was speechless. The ability to build more meaningful relationships.

living a sober life articles

There are some people that I had to let go of when I first got sober, and some people that eventually fell out of my life because our lifestyles became incompatible. It can hurt to realize that the only thing holding a friendship together is substance abuse, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ but it is liberating to know that I no longer have fake people in my life that are not good for my well being. In order to live a life of sobriety after living a life of addiction, a person will need to make several changes to the way they live their life.

You avoid alcohol- or drug-related health problems.

I have heard stories of her drinking when she was younger. And I see she is a different person now that she doesn’t. At first I struggled to feel “drunk enough” to belong at AA.

There is something that is empowering about being able to work through the ups and downs of life without the use of drugs or alcohol to cope. A person who doesn’t need to rely on toxic substances to work through their problems is someone who is truly free. Aside from being part of a pretty awesome sober society, it’s important to realize how to enjoy life sober. I have found a ton of fun ways to live the sober life. You can try different groups and processes to find the route that best suits your needs. Remember though that it will take time to break your addiction and you’ll need continued support from your recovery program.

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