Whether you’ve been living a sober life for years or are just beginning your journey, maintaining your sobriety can come with its own set of unique challenges.
Fortunately, by practicing healthy tips and methods for remaining sober, you can continue to live a healthy and sober lifestyle.
Here are seven tips for staying sober:
- Set Goals: By setting realistic and achievable goals, you can help yourself remain focused on your sobriety. These goals can include anything from participating in a 12-step program to establishing a healthy routine to setting up a weekly appointment to talk with a professional.
- Have A Support System: Maintaining your sobriety can be a difficult task, but it’s not one you have to do alone. Develop a strong support system of family members, friends and support groups to help you stay on track toward your sobriety goals. These should be people who are supportive of your journey and can be a listening ear or a helpful hand when you are struggling.
- Identify Your Triggers: Your triggers are certain feelings or situations that make you want to break your sobriety. By identifying these triggers, you can help prevent future relapses. Triggers can include different types of stress, certain relationships, social situations and much more. If you are not sure what triggers you may have, consider speaking with a professional who can help you to identify them.
- Set Boundaries: In addition to finding a strong support group, it’s important to set boundaries with those who are not supportive as well. You can set boundaries by telling your friends and family that you do not want to be around drugs or alcohol during your journey. You can ask them to respect your journey and say no if you are invited to triggering situations. Remember that individuals may not always be supportive of your journey. If this is the case, it may be time to cut ties with them.
- Practice A Healthy Routine: Keeping the same routine that you did when you weren’t sober can cause you to fall back into old habits — like having a drink at the bar every Friday or a glass of wine when you get home from work. By establishing a healthy routine to your day, you will effectively break your old habits and give yourself a few positive ones to focus on.
- Talk With a Professional: Keeping the lines of communication open with yourself can help a great deal when it comes to your sobriety. In order to do this, you might consider speaking with a professional therapist every so often. Therapists can help you identify your trigger areas, help you navigate complicated emotions tied to your addiction and be a helpful listening ear throughout your journey.
- Celebrate Your Journey: Keep yourself motivated to continue living a sober lifestyle by celebrating your success along the way. Success comes in many sizes and can cover a variety of topics from how long you’ve practiced sobriety to celebrating the positive ripple effects that occur because of your healthy change. If you are looking for ways to celebrate your journey, consider: buying yourself a bouquet of your favorite flowers, making yourself a nice lunch, taking a trip or visiting a friend or relative, reading your favorite book and so much more.
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