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Sobriety and You: What It Means to Be Sober

Posted on April 10, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Conventionally, a person is sober when they haven’t had much or anything to drink, as indicated by how well they can control their faculties. We commonly associate someone trying to be sober with being clear minded, alert, and aware.

In addiction terminology, sobriety is defined more clearly as the absence of any significant mind-altering substance. But the spirit remains the same. Being sober means being alert and aware – and ready.

A common misconception is that sobriety is a penance, a lifestyle choice that inherently makes like less enjoyable. But the longer you stay sober, the more you realize that the opposite is true. Getting drunk or high robs you of real emotion, experience, and time. It steals away what it means to be alive and live in the moment. And recovery can show you just what that means, and how valuable it really is.

What Is Sobriety?

Being sober or clean means not being under the influence of drugs, from alcohol to medication. You can be sober for an hour, a day, or a decade. Sobriety does not imply a length of any kind, nor does it imply a commitment to staying sober. It just means you’re currently not on anything.

But from there, you can go on to define for yourself what it means to be sober – and what it means to you to commit yourself to that sobriety. For some, sobriety is a path to clarity. For others, it’s a necessity for survival, a choice they make to live. Some people embrace sobriety, and others live their sober lives begrudgingly, as a form of obligation or punishment for being “out of control” when drunk.

Some stretch the boundaries of what it means to stay sober. In one sense, sobriety means overcoming the addiction – because how can you succumb to your addiction when you don’t indulge in it at all? Others, however, forego their drug of choice but don’t quit smoking, or drinking. Yet they never let their behavior get out of hand, either, when their new drug is something they only consume in moderation. Not everyone can do that, and no person out of rehab should try it – but addiction, just like people, comes in all shapes and sizes.

At a certain point, it becomes impossible to discuss sobriety without slipping into the philosophical, or the personal. Sobriety is what you make of it, beyond its most simple definition as a state of not being high or drunk.

Yet most importantly, sobriety is an eye-opener. The opportunities it creates can be positive and negative, and it’s not inherently always “good” or enjoyable, but sobriety does give you a chance to see things from different angles, think about your actions, and move on past your mistakes. The reason that trauma is one of the big risk factors for developing an addiction in the future is because coping with unresolved pain is one of the root causes of addiction. Deciding to be sober lets you do away with the coping, and instead start resolving.

No One Can Force You To Be Sober

Choice is an important concept to think about in the context of addiction. Life is full of choices, and the ones we make are often not thoroughly thought-out. When we act rashly, or let certain factors negatively influence our thinking, we make mistakes. Often, we regret these mistakes. It could be relatively innocuous, like slipping up in an argument and lashing out verbally, or it can result in much greater and darker consequences. Sometimes, a choice leads to another naturally, and a cascade of bad decisions leads us to a place we never wanted to be. Choice does lead to addiction, but the context and the circumstances behind why most people get addicted helps us understand that what they need is compassion, not judgment.

It’s clear that people make mistakes. And getting addicted is rarely a consequence of choosing addiction – rather, it’s a consequence of other choices. Whether or not that’s our “fault” is a question best answered based on what outcome you want to achieve. If your goal is to be a better person and move on past your addiction, then recognizing your part in getting addicted is vital. But so is letting go of the guilt and blame associated with those bad choices. Beyond that, we must understand that life is not rigid, but fluid – the choices you make today are arguably far more important than the choices you made in the past, and most of the mistakes we make can be owned up and overcome, even addiction.

That is why it’s important to choose sobriety. No one can force it upon you – it just doesn’t work. The first step to recovery is wanting it – that’s not just a 12-step philosophy, but a fact. You must choose to be sober, and you must think long and hard about why you personally justify that choice. It’s not something you can decide without conviction.

Living with that choice is empowering and scary. When you make the choice to be sober, you take responsibility for your own sobriety. Once the addiction fades, your actions are every bit your own, and as the cravings subside, you must continue to actively choose sobriety over addiction every time you wake up. It’s daunting and in the beginning, it can be really hard. But it does get easier.

Sober Living

The early days of recovery are the hardest. Not only do you have to be sober and get used to that feeling, but the brain can be quite fragile in this state. Mood swings and emotional rollercoasters are not uncommon, and you might feel equal parts ecstatic and depressed over your newfound sobriety. Getting through these days is hard even with treatment but staying strong throughout them is a sign of a steady and healthy recovery.

One of the biggest challenges is avoiding temptation. While rehab gets you up and about, and prepares you for the basics of being clean, most rehab programs aren’t long enough to prepare you completely. Sober living programs can help you by putting you in a living situation where you don’t have to worry about drugs, but still have to work to financially sustain your recovery, contribute to the community, be with other sober people, and continue your treatment.

Sober living environments can help you solidify and get comfortable in your sobriety and give you a sense of structure and normalcy. Instead of shying away from choice and responsibility, a sober living environment will help you embrace your newfound freedom and self-determination, and see sobriety not as a burden, but as the key you needed to undo your chains.

Community Can Make Or Break Your Recovery

Posted on April 3, 2018April 3, 2018 by JohnAdmin

As a medical condition, addiction is reliant on many factors. Many are quick to blame drugs for drug abuse – but it is not that simple. Others are quick to blame solely a person’s environment and suggest that loneliness is the driving factor. Yet again, it is not quite that simple. Addiction is dependent on a person’s history, mindset, genetics, environment, drug of choice, their mental and physical condition in the nascent stages of their addiction, sense of community and belonging, and more.

As such, when treating addiction, the answer is not as simple as just suggesting any one treatment. There is no quick fix, no one-size-fits-all. Every case of addiction comes with its own unique circumstances and differences – as such, experts today are trained to treat every individual as an individual.

But people sometimes overvalue the power of treatment in treating addiction and preventing a relapse. A big part of any treatment program is not just helping an individual through their withdrawal and early recovery, but it should give their patient the tools they need to continue their sobriety going forward – including important advice on community and social support.

The people we surround ourselves with after treatment can make or break the recovery process – and knowing what roles they play in your own journey can help you identify problematic relationships and move towards healthier ones.

The Role Of Community In Addiction

We rely on each other for emotional support and social bonds – by forming friendships and relationships with other people, we enrich our lives and those around us. We find affirmation, confrontation, inspiration and more in the conversations and experiences that we share with the people in our lives. And part of living means being among the living and finding meaning by examining how other people decide to spend their lives.

The importance of community goes far beyond addiction – it is integral to every person. But in addiction specifically, having a community around you that you feel supported by, a community you can contribute to and exist in, is important. Because without a community that lets you be a part of it, the alternative is isolation and loneliness. This builds a much more negative mindset, making it harder to resist cravings and stay sober.

No one can fight their addiction alone, even if they fight it without treatment. We need the support and compassion of our friends and relatives to stay strong, and we need a community we can be a part of. This is not to complicate the importance of being strong as an individual – it is to clarify that recovery is a journey where both the group and you as an individual matter.

The Individual And The Group In Recovery

Recovery relies on your conscious commitment to getting better. That decision must come from you, and you must actively seek out the encouragement and motivation you need to stay true to it.

That is your burden as the individual struggling with addiction, and no one else can make the choice for you, or stay strong in your stead.

However, while it is important that you realize how much your own choices matter and how they affect your path, you can always seek help and support to keep you on that path. Addiction recovery can be strenuous and difficult, and the cravings can last for weeks, making staying away from a relapse very hard. This is compounded by the emotional impact of early sobriety, coming to terms with a sober life, and the many responsibilities that come your way as a sober person.

Sober living environments can make this a bit easier by giving you a drug-free environment to live in and adjust to. But it is important to consider the power of support groups, from friends and family to group therapy and local addiction meetings.

The Importance Of A Healthy Family

A healthy family means a healthy home, and a home should be the environment we are most comfortable in. There is no family without strife or conflict, but it is how families tackle each individual conflict and resolve each issue that determines whether they are healthy or not. Often, our families are our most staunch advocates and the only people we can rely on for unconditional love.

Addiction can strain even the most composed and loving families – it’s difficult to deal with an addiction, not only from the point of view of the addicted, but from the point of view of those around them. Most recovery programs will urge families to educate themselves on addiction and provide them with resources to help them better understand their loved one’s condition and sympathize with their thoughts and struggles.

Through professional help and solid information, a loving family can come together to significantly improve your recovery process and help keep you sober even when the threat of relapse draws near.

Not all families have the communication skills to resolve issues amicably, and create a positive, supporting environment. Sometimes, it’s necessary to make the hard choice to leave your family behind, and find a healthier home, one where you can be with friends and spend your time in recovery pursuing positive environments.

Getting Out Of Toxic Situations

An unsupportive or criticizing family can be very detrimental in recovery – but it is not the only issue to watch out for. If your community discriminates against you because of your history of addiction, or you find yourself in hostile situations with people in your neighborhood because of your past, then it may be pertinent to move.

Staying in contact with old friends from days past can also trigger cravings and even cause a relapse, especially if they have not moved on and are still stuck in addiction. If you cannot convince them to get help, then the healthiest thing for you to do is cut off all contact.

Early on in recovery, your sobriety is still quite fragile, and toxic relationships can break your efforts in two. Avoid unnecessary stress and conflict and try to seek out a healthier, better sober living environment, until you’re ready to confront your past – or move on entirely.

Sober Fun In Houston

Posted on March 29, 2018July 18, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Houston is a big city, with 180 years of history and heritage. As a metropolis, and the largest city in American South, it’s a melting pot of cultures and traditions with over 2 million inhabitants. As far as places to live go, being sober in Houston is great as it’s one of the most interesting cities in the United States, and there’s more to do here than most people would suspect.

Sure, there’s sports bars, a busy nightlife, and a slew of breweries and beer markets. Yet when going through recovery, many recovering addicts share the fear that they won’t know what to do with their free time without the temptations of addiction, especially alcohol. But you don’t need to drink to have a good time in Houston – and you don’t need to be anywhere near a drink to enjoy yourself, even at night, and party well into the next morning.

Learning to have fun while sober is one of the most important lessons during addiction. You can’t stay determined and committed to your sobriety if you don’t know how to enjoy yourself – and in a massive city like Houston, there are plenty of ways to have fun.

Head To The Theater

This can go both ways – you could take in a piece of classical stage play or experience a more modern twist in any one of Houston’s historic theaters. It’s an easy way to kill some time on an uneventful afternoon, and you might be surprised as Houston’s theater scene.

Head downtown to the theater district and take in the glamour and sophistication. Even if you’re not necessarily a patron of the arts, you might find a play you’ll really connect with.

Take In Real History

Houston is a city with a rich history, from Texan traditions to revolutionary milestones in space travel. Yet there’s much more history than that in Houston’s zoos and museums, scattered throughout the museum district. While being sober in Houston there are

If you’re up for a day of learning, wonder, and culture, there’s bound to be something that’ll catch your attention among the 300,000 sq.-ft. of museum space.

You don’t have to be big on trivia or science to enjoy wandering the halls of a museum. Houston’s museums offer an insight into ancient cultures, with textiles, paintings, artifacts and photographs giving you a glimpse into a world that no longer exists today, an enriching escape that will leave you amazed at human ingenuity and the many stories embedded in each installation.

Fill Your Evening With Laughter

They say laughter is the best medicine – and there’s more truth to that than you might think. Comedy can be a great path not only to a happier self and better state of mind, but it can help remind you of a form of joy you might not have had in a while as you pursue sobriety in Houston.

Many comedians have had their fair share of battles with addiction, and sober comedians are especially skilled at turning their own demons into opportunities for laughter, and a light-hearted insight into something deeper, and quite meaningful – a personal perspective on an incredibly painful subject.

Have a go at local comedy clubs, check out comedians on tour, or spend the night at home binge-watching your favorite comics on Netflix. No matter which way you get your laughs, comedy can be a great help in getting a new, positive perspective on your struggles and triumphs while sober in Houston.

Skip The Booze, Get Some Coffee

Coffee is traditionally a drink had during the day, but there’s nothing to stop you from visiting a coffee shop at night and enjoying a smooth cup of decaf to the sounds of mellow music, and the invigorating aroma of roasted beans.

Plenty of coffee shops throughout Houston offer an amazing nighttime ambience, making them the perfect locale for when you just want a place to retreat to, while still out in public, enjoying a book or just people-watching. Shops like Agora and Black Hole Coffee House come to mind, but there are many more. Enjoying time out in cafe’s is a great way to spend time sober in Houston.

No one says you must go out to get a cup of your favorite brew. But you might find that getting out of the house and ordering a cup at a café of your choice is about more than just taking in the coffee and the music. Then there’s the prospect of going to each and every one, just to see which suits your tastes best.

Enjoy The Outdoors While Sober In Houston

While Houston is a city, it also has some of the most beautiful parks of any urban center in America, with several nature centers, sanctuaries, a city arboretum, and countless trails and outdoor activities not far from the city outskirts. If you’re looking for a stroll through nature, you will have a hard time choosing.

Houston Audubon, for example, manages 17 sanctuaries throughout the Gulf Coast region, and concerns itself with the conservation of several local species of birds and other wildlife. If you want to take in the calm and zen of a forest without leaving town, there’s no better place to head to than the arboretum.

Just beyond the city, Houston offers a slew of outdoor activities, parks and trails. These can be good options for hose who are sober in Houston to spend some time appreciating nature and the outdoors.

Indulge Your Inner Foodie

Sobriety is all about not giving in to dangerous and harmful temptations and falling in love with sobriety instead – and one of the key factors to enjoying being sober in Houston is enjoying a good meal.

Houston, being one of the most populous cities in the country, is no stranger to good cooking in a variety of cuisines, and the city is outfitted with countless top-notch restaurants, bistros, bakeries, and chocolatiers. If it’s a good culinary experience you’re after, Houston has its fair share to offer.

Volunteer At An Animal Shelter

Perhaps one of the most fulfilling ways of spending your time in recovery is through helping others – especially those who can’t help themselves. Houston has several shelters that dedicate themselves to rescuing animals off the streets and getting them out of abusive homes, giving them the love and treatment, they deserve so they can get adopted into a caring home.

However, the process from A to B is complicated, and filled with challenges. Volunteers are much appreciated, and any help – from buying food, to sponsoring medical care, to helping with other tasks and reaching out to families for awareness – can go a long way.

Addiction is incredibly expensive, and time-consuming. Individuals can bring themselves to the brink of financial ruin and beyond in search of the next high. And as an addiction worsens, more and more time is spent thinking about or craving the drug. The idea of sobriety being boring couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, what sobriety brings you is a healthier wallet, a healthier body, and a treasure trove of time better spent doing half a million other things.

Dedicating yourself to sobriety does not just mean you’re staying drug-free. People have this misconception that you’re sacrificing something to stay sober. Instead, being sober gives you the opportunity to truly live. It gives you the opportunity to seek out adventure, have new positive experiences, and make memories that you will actually remember the next day.

This list is just the tip of the iceberg. What awaits you living sober in Houston is not just a list of “sober things” to do in your city. It’s life, the way it’s meant to be lived, free from the chains of addiction and the unhealthy and destructive obsession your old habit forced on you. Embrace this new life, and everything it has to offer.

Benefits Of Living A Sober Lifestyle

Posted on March 16, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Sometimes, the call to get sober comes from the outside. An accident, a loss or a wake-up call might compel you to see that the damage you’re doing is serious, and not just a matter of choice. But to many who take the first step towards realizing their addiction is a problem, the prospect of going sober – and staying sober – means the death of all that is fun. They see their new sober lifestyle as an amalgam of obligation and chastity – having to live just to stop hurting others, a punishment for their bad choices and mistakes.

This is extremely wrong. Sobriety is never a punishment. And neither is it something you should be doing strictly for others. When your addiction starts to grow into something terrible, and the consequences start to pile up, then it’s abundantly clear that you need to make a change. But that should be a change for yourself, for the better. And sobriety is that change. A sober lifestyle is neither boring nor painful, and in many ways it’s far more exciting, energizing and life-changing than addiction could ever be.

On its own, a sober lifestyle is nothing more than just you not taking drugs or alcohol. But delve deeper into what that affords you, and you’ll come to realize that there are countless benefits to living a sober lifestyle. Here are just a few that immediately come to mind.

Much More Time & Money

The first thing you might notice during a sober lifestyle is that you have a lot more time on your hands – and a lot more money. Addictions cost a tremendous amount of money and can often financially cripple entire households. The exact cost never really matters – people deep in an addiction will seek out whatever is available, from expensive high-quality prescription medication to the least reputable black tar on the streets.

When you’re leading a sober lifestyle, you can finally put that resourcefulness to the test in productive ways, seeking out work and finding ways to use your time to support yourself and your hobbies.

The Ability To Stay In Relationships

There is only room for one person in an addict’s life – themselves. Addiction is a disease that rewires your brain to be selfish – more than anything else, you are made to care about the next high. Breaking that mentality while using is nearly impossible and keeping up a believable façade becomes harder the longer you use. Eventually, it’s on your partner to choose to stay and support your recovery or leave to save themselves from emotional destruction.

One way or the other, there is no way relationships can last or be healthy if either or both people struggle with addiction. But with a sober lifestyle, you have the chance to try again – and be happier than any high in the world.

You Get To Look Much Better

Drug addiction not only causes your health to deteriorate through organ damage, but it can drastically alter and affect your physical appearance. This isn’t just a matter of hygiene – abusing drugs excessively will take years off your clock, worsen your complexion, and give you serious health issues that can change the way you look, from hypertension to diabetes and heart disease.

Drugs like methamphetamine are especially well-known for affecting your physical appearance, while many irreputable sources of heroin can be spiked with other more dangerous substances, damaging your immune system, and eliminating your appetite.

By abstaining from drugs, you will find your complexion return to normal, your health improves, you gain or lose weight, and find the time to care about your appearance much more, caring for your hair and skin and appearing healthy once again.

You Have More Energy With A Sober Lifestyle

Even though drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine can give you unnatural amounts of energy and motivation, these boosts are just temporary. Drug use over time will lead to a lack of proper rest, sometimes developing into full-blown insomnia. Beyond that, constant drug use wears your body down, decreasing your energy reserves, cutting into your appetite, and generally leaving your body frailer – even to the point of damaging your immune system and vital organs.

Some people develop lesions and suffer severe symptoms from common infections, while others become unhealthy through poor hygiene and malnutrition. Addiction can make us forget to take care of ourselves, and can disrupt our natural instincts towards restful sleep, good food and regular washing. This only becomes worse as the addiction progresses into cycles of withdrawal and relapse, where often, individuals develop co-dependent illnesses like anxiety and major depression.

You may not realize it, but even “casual” drug use cuts into your regular sleeping schedule and can rob you of a lot of energy. Going sober early will not only save you from a host of physical complications and months of serious rehab and recovery, but it will give you a boost of energy and make you realize just how lethargic you have been feeling.

A Consistent Scale

A lack of appetite or rapid weight gain are symptoms of certain drug use – for example, cocaine and prescription amphetamines, as well as methamphetamine and other stimulants will often cut into a person’s appetite, causing drastic weight loss and malnourishment. In fact, some dangerous crash diets go so far as to recommend illegal stimulants or “weight loss supplements” with stimulant ingredients as way to quickly and efficiently lose weight.

Alcoholism, on the other hand, can lead to several different health issues including rapid weight gain due to the excess of liquid calories being added to a person’s diet over the course of the day. Other drugs can also affect the body’s metabolism and appetite, causing your weight to spike or drop significantly.

By going clean, staying clean and nursing your sobriety, you gain a shot at a stable and healthy weight. Some turn from an addiction to drugs or alcohol to an addiction to food or develop eating disorders to cope with post-rehab stress. It is important to continue to address your stress after rehab and figure out better and healthier ways to cope with problems, rather than utilizing negative coping mechanisms and damaging your physical and emotional health in the process.

Beyond these benefits of a sober lifestyle, there are several others. For example: most cases of drug use and alcoholism lead to a steady decline in mental faculties, due to brain damage. Reversing this can take time, but you can improve your cognition in the long-term by staying sober. And of course, sobriety is about more than just enjoying better physical and mental health. It’s about your social health, as well. Through sobriety, you can have more fun than ever – it’s just a question of knowing where to look.

What Makes Sobriety Great?

Posted on March 9, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Sobriety is boring. Sobriety is hard. Sobriety isn’t worth it. These are just a few of the statements commonly made to ridicule people who have gone through the tremendous effort to resist all temptation and pledge a vow to sobriety – with or without addiction.

Yet sobriety is more than just the absence of addiction. Sobriety is the presence of clarity – it does not represent an absence of anything, past the technical definition of being sober and clean. Sobriety means seeing life in its true colors, and in broad daylight, with none of the tint or taint that alcohol or drugs bring to the table.

But that alone is not why sobriety is great. What makes sobriety great is what all that clarity affords you. It makes way for you to see and understand things you might never have seen or understood without being sober.

A Clear Mind In Sobriety

The first and clearest benefit to sobriety is that you get a clear head. Some people seem to erroneously think that clarity is a bad thing. It is neither good nor bad, inherently – instead, it’s true. It gives you the chance to see things for what they are and make an informed decision – to see through to the bones of your own situation, and take the steps to change it, rather than ignoring your problems, or burying them under distractions.

More bluntly, addiction gives you the state of mind you need to truly explore yourself. Consider your thoughts and actions. Find a way to make peace with yourself. Think back to the mistakes you’ve made, and find ways to reflect on them, and be mindful of your actions in the future. To have a clear mind is a great strength – but it’s not an immediate change. It takes time – even after you’re sober, you’ll be emotionally clouded, struggling with old buried feelings and powerful emotions like anger and shame.

Facing that is difficult, and it is why many people relapse. Overcoming the internal conflict while coping with the outside world can be too much stress for one person, which is why continuing treatment after rehab in places like a sober living facility can help many who still struggle emotionally after going sober.

Time For Other Passions

Addiction robs us of so much time. For one, many addictions can damage a person’s health, shaving years off their life-expectancy and dramatically raising the risk for major heart issues, strokes and more. Yet it also takes time in a more direct and literal sense – it takes time to think about drugs, get drugs, get high, recover, and repeat the cycle. You lose time, and as an addiction progresses, more and more of your time is lost. Time you used to spend attending to your studies or working or pursuing your hobbies gradually goes towards getting high or figuring out how to get high.

Sobriety gives you the chance to take all that wasted time and make a change – using it for the better. It gives you time to get back to work, to make new friendships, and to pursue new passions.

Real Relationships

Much like time, relationships are important to people. Although we can survive alone for a time, we don’t do very well in isolation and struggle immensely with loneliness, even if only emotionally. Addiction and drug use in general might gain you superficial friendships, but it is hard to trust an addict, even as a fellow addict, because the addiction is steering the person, not them.

Sobriety gives you a shot at real friendship, opening up a whole world of communication and honesty, allowing you to create a new tight social circle to hang around with, while restoring old relationships, friendships, and family ties.

Through sobriety, you have the chance to connect with people and be a person again – someone who can be there for others and be a contributing part of a community.

Dependability And Honesty

Being honest and dependable is not a guarantee – it is something you have to work for, and for some people, it is much harder than others. On one hand, it’s quite simple. Do as you say you will do, and be honest about your feelings, intentions, and actions. But it takes strong character to stand by one’s words.

Character, however, isn’t an inborn trait. It’s trained – and overcoming an addiction shows incredible character. By staying true to your sobriety and your promise to abstinence, you can prove yourself to be dependable and honest – as long as you work through your programs and get help when you feel you need it.

There is no such thing as a smooth path to recovery – every journey after addiction is one paved with a very bumpy road, and you will need all the help you can get if you want to stick to that road.

Financial Stability

Being addicted to drugs costs an immense amount of money. Some people spend far more than others, but the general rule is that no matter what your income is, you will spend a significant percentage of it on getting high as the addiction progresses.

The simple fact that an addiction will constantly push itself to grow larger and larger means that no matter how financially stable you are, drug abuse can be catastrophic for your future – and it too often is.

Sobriety eliminates this issue by saving you a theoretical fortune. It is not necessarily easy to find work after addiction, but plenty of programs exist to help sober people find steadily paying work. After treatment, every moment spent not looking for or buying drugs is not just money saved, but time saved – and that time can be put towards making more money.

Actual Happiness

Sobriety does not guarantee happiness – there is no such thing as guaranteed happiness. Happiness is a state of mind – but it cannot really be achieved just chemically. Where a high will give you temporary happiness and leave you feeling worse than before, true happiness can be a memory that will bring you comfort for the rest of your life.

It’s times when you live in the moment and realize how blissful you feel and know that it’s one of those moments you can always hold onto and recall when you need it the most.

Without sobriety, those moments are gone forever. But by staying sober, you’re saying yes not just to uncertainty, but to moments of true happiness. You’re saying yes to life how it really is, with all its beauty and its problems. And that is the true greatness behind staying sober.

Tips To Avoid Relapsing

Posted on March 7, 2018March 7, 2018 by JohnAdmin

To most people in early recovery, there’s nothing more terrifying than failing. Falling back into your old ways and continuing to be consumed by the addiction. But that’s not necessarily failure. There’s a common misconception where many people feel like if they make one mistake – one misstep – they have failed themselves. Failure is giving up sobriety and using until you pass away. Failure is when you quit all hope of getting better because of a relapse and no long attempt to avoid relapsing.

Relapses, on the other hand, are not failures. They’re mistakes, but they’re mistakes we can learn from. For example – a relapse can teach you how to avoid another relapse, if you pay attention to the signs. But that doesn’t mean that we should embrace relapses as a regular occurrence, either. You should avoid relapses – but don’t let them consume you entirely and rob you of every hope for lasting recovery.

To get sober and stay sober, you have to want to be sober more than anything else – but it’s not enough to just want something. Addiction treatment can be long and arduous, and it involves many exercises, therapies, and steps. If you want to avoid another relapse, or avoid relapsing ever again, then here’s what you need to do:

Find Some Friends

Recovery is an individual task – but it’s best done together. Individual therapy is not enough to heal from addiction. It takes more than the knowledge of a therapist and the ability to tackle and improve your thoughts to overcome addiction – time and time again, the stressors of the real world will test your ability to cope with difficulty, and the cravings will grow stronger and stronger.

You need others for support, both as a way to rant and blow off steam, and as a way to hear from them, help them with their problems, and depend on one another. Group therapy and other sober group activities is a new way to meet new sober friends, and plan outings.

You don’t have to find dozens of new acquaintances – spreading yourself too thin isn’t a good idea either. Instead, hang out with different groups and find one or two people you really vibe with. If things work out, they’ll work out – if not, keep looking. Having a pal or two can make addiction recovery a lot easier – it gives you a person to talk to about issues most people would never understand, and the fresh perspective on a similar yet completely different struggle can give you new ideas on how to tackle your own addiction and help avoid relapsing.

Having someone close in your social circle also gives you the comfort of knowing that if things get turbulent, you have someone you can call and talk to. Relapses often happen because a single thing pushes you off the edge – hopelessness. Many are triggered by different factors, from cravings to old memories and more. But they give in when something inside of them convinces them that recovery won’t work.

A friend can help stave off that moment, and keep you sober. It won’t be easy, and some cases are harder than others, but it’s clear that reliable friends are important and can help you avoid relapsing.

Get A New Hobby

Hobbies are not just a way to spend time, but they’re a way to keep yourself stimulated, physically and creatively. From sports to art and academics, finding a hobby you can truly embrace and stick with is one of the most powerful tools for maintaining sobriety and avoid relapsing.

Hobbies are not just distractions for when you feel stressed, or when you need some time to yourself. They are meant to provide an additional focal point to your recovery and give you a progressive series of goals to strive towards, improving yourself and thus making gradual but significant steps away from addiction, and towards your new sober lifestyle.

A good hobby can also serve as an adaptive coping mechanism. That means it gives you a way to release stress and blow off steam without further worsening your situation, instead helping you adapt to it by improving your cognition or your health.

Drug use is a classic example of a maladaptive coping mechanism. While it does help you forget your problems, it creates an entirely new and incredibly destructive problem. The same goes for any form of addiction, including an addiction to food, or even to typically healthy activities like exercise. Too much of anything can be terrible – and if approached with the wrong mindset, something harmless can become a maladaptive coping mechanism.

To put it differently, your hobby should be something that makes you stronger, letting you face your problems head-on, rather than simply giving you a direction to run away from your problems.

Learn Your Triggers And Avoid Relapsing

Relapses do not happen out of nowhere. When addiction treatment begins, it is normal for someone straight out of withdrawal to experience powerful cravings. Sober living facilities and residential treatment facilities exist to help people cope with these cravings.

When treatment ends, and time passes, the cravings begin to go away. But certain triggers can bring them back. For example – the sight or sound of an old neighborhood, meeting an old friend, having a meal at a specific restaurant, hearing a specific song. These are cues for old memories to come flooding back, alongside powerful emotions, and the subsequent temptation of addiction.

Understanding these triggers, and learning which triggers you can easily ignore, and which you have to live with, is important to avoid relapsing.

With time, simply ignoring your triggers won’t do. But to overcome them, you need to get to a point where you can manage cravings and ride them out without giving into them. Before then, knowing what can and will possibly trigger your cravings can be very helpful.

When you feel a relapse coming on, it is important to think back on these tips. What triggered it? Who should you call? And what can you do? Begin by taking a deep breath, and thinking of a single, simple thought that motivates you. Prepare that thought now and use it as a mantra – a phrase that reminds you why you stay sober. For some, that phrase can be to remind them of their loved ones. For others, it’s to remind them of their dream. Whatever it is, hold onto it, call your friend, and do not give in.

It’s Time to Get Serious About Staying Sober

Posted on March 1, 2018February 28, 2018 by JohnAdmin

The biggest advantage you have in the fight against addiction is in the power of your own will to get better. In the early days, it’s normal to feel almost powerless. The cravings and the temptations will be stronger than ever right after you stop using, and that is why many people seek help with staying sober when starting out.

But as time goes on, once the drug is out of your system and early recovery has begun, your will becomes more instrumental than ever. You must to keep staying sober – everything else comes second.

Of course, your will alone is not enough. Any temptation or memory of the past can trigger a powerful craving, one that can be incredibly hard to resist. Whenever things are not going your way – and as life goes, that can be quite often – the urge to use grows stronger, to forget your troubles and defeat the stress. Some days are worse than others, and at times, it feels like life is taunting you.

But the longer you stay clean, the rarer the bad days get, and the more you feel happy about yourself and your life. To get to that tipping point, however, you may need every ounce of help you can get your hands on. Thankfully, there are more than enough resources out there to get you started and keep you on the right path. Here are a few essentials for getting serious about staying sober.

Find A Hobby While Staying Sober

A big part of successful addiction treatment is finding the ability to enjoy yourself without drugs. Life is meant to be lived, but addiction often robs us of the joy of living. It will not come back easily, but finding a hobby that draws you in can be a great first step in staying sober. For many, it is something related to exercise.

Getting active causes your body to release endorphins, allowing you to feel good without any external substance. What is often referred to as the “runner’s high” is not exclusive to running and applies to a wide variety of sports and activities.

Other sports and hobbies that do not necessarily involve physical prowess can also be a great introduction into sober living. Take chess and reading, for example, or painting. Regardless of your talent, activities like painting and writing allow you to express yourself and your emotions in ways you might not be able to in conversation or everyday living.

Journaling is a common way to relieve stress and tension at the end of the day, and reflect on the day, thus improving mindfulness – an important factor in addiction treatment. It also allows you to hone your focus and keep your cognition sharp – these are both important, because long-term drug use often diminishes your ability to think critically and be focused while staying sober.

Another important part of picking out a hobby is to be social again. Making new friends related either to your sobriety or to a hobby you really enjoy is an important part of staying sober. By building connections and creating casual relationships, we begin to build a life that allows us to be accountable to others as a friend or acquaintance and gives us time to look forward to outside of time spent alone, in the company of your own thoughts and temptations.

That, and the people around you can become major cornerstones in your long-term battle against addiction, by providing vital support while you are staying sober.

Surround Yourself With Support

Addiction is not a disease best fought alone – in fact, it may be impossible to fight addiction alone. People who get sober without treatment do so more often out of their connection with others, rather than their own will. This because addiction often erodes people’s self-esteem and causes you to be more likely to feel shame or fear, rather than be motivated by your odds of success.

But when we see sobriety not only as something that can benefit us, but as a way to fulfill our obligations to others and be someone we can feel good about, it becomes much more powerful.

That is the power behind accountability. By surrounding ourselves with people who care about us, we can be accountable to them in the fight against addiction.

Support is more than just that, of course. By making new friends in circles of sobriety, such as group meetings and sober living communities, you can help motivate others to work on staying sober and be motivated by them and their struggles. Creating a network and relying on a trustworthy social circle can greatly improve your motivation to keep on fighting, day after day.

Get With The Program

Addiction programs exist of reason: many of them work. We have come a long way since the early days of addiction treatment – from medication to help combat some of the most addictive and powerful drugs in the world, to therapeutic treatments that help patients completely change the way they think and act with hard work and dedication, to treatment programs that cater themselves entirely to a client’s circumstances and needs.

If you can afford to take time away from work, or need to be in a safe, temptation-less environment, then facilities such as residential treatment clinics and sober living communities can make a huge impact and set you on your way towards long-term sobriety. For those who cannot afford such a commitment, outpatient programs of all shapes and sizes exist to fit to your schedule.

Get Professional Help

Friends and family are integral to better overall health – having a solid support system and a trustworthy social circle in your life is important regardless of your mental health. But when it comes to addiction, it probably is not enough to only look towards your friends and family. While they are important and will be a cornerstone for your continued sobriety long after initial treatment, a professional therapist, and other experts with an assortment of skills and tools can help you tailor a very specific and highly effective treatment to combat your addiction and equip you with the skills you need to continue fighting addiction long after any program typically ends.

Addiction is not defeated in rehab – but rehab, or other related treatment options such as sober living, can teach you more about yourself and your relationship with drugs. That knowledge will be instrumental to avoiding relapses, dealing with difficult and tense situations, surviving the fallout from broken relationships or other losses and tragedies, and generally learning how to enjoy life after addiction, and continue to avoid falling back into it.

Things To Do While Sober In Houston

Posted on January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 by JohnAdmin

Houston is a beautiful city, with a rich heritage and grand historic significance for the country. That being said, you shouldn’t just take anyone’s word for it – instead, take the opportunity to judge the city for yourself as someone who has taken a pledge to themselves to go sober in Houston, and stick to it.

Sobriety doesn’t have to be dull, boring or predictable – it can be spontaneous, exciting, and the pathway to many new adventures and countless unforgettable memories while sober in Houston.

When drugs become a factor in someone’s life, they might often struggle to see how things could be more enjoyable while stone-cold sober. But the truth is that when you’re on drugs, life is completely fogged.

While that helps some people escape the more painful and tragic realities of their life, it also forces them to miss out on the truly beautiful and meaningful moments.

What To Do While Sober In Houston

Here are just a couple things you could do while sober in Houston:

Explore Buffalo Bayou

An absolutely beautiful stretch of land, the Buffalo Bayou has undergone redevelopment costing several million dollars in order to preserve and uphold its natural beauty. The Buffalo Bayou Park is an especially tranquil place to spend the day while sober in Houston, with natural landscaping, footpaths and more.

Take a Martial Arts Class

Martial arts are more than just a great way to learn about self-defense – they can help you feel more calm and confident in your everyday life, and provide you with a proactive mindset to tackle life’s challenges without timidity or hesitation. From striking arts like boxing and krav maga, to more visceral grappling arts like Judo and jiu-jitsu, and less violent arts dedicated more to personal health like tai chi and qi gong, there’s a little bit of everything and something for everyone to discover, both about other cultures and themselves.

Check Out the Houston Waterworks

The Houston underground cistern was built in 1927, and provided decades of fresh drinking water, acting as the city’s first water reservoir for years until a leak rendered it unusable. Since then, the cistern has been developed into an 87,500-sq.-ft. historic space for Houstonites and tourists alike to visit and marvel at. It is currently only accessible within certain limits, but will become a temporary art installation.

Learn How to Cook

Cooking is more than just an essential life skill, or a way to avoid going hungry – it can be an artform, and a great way to pass the time while sober in Houston and delve into new cultures through fresh ingredients and foreign tastes. Explore the world on your dinner plate, or simply experiment with certain recipes and ideas to create your own spin and flair – the world of cooking gives you plenty of room to get creative, and is its own reward.

Spend the Day at the Project Row Houses

A community-based arts project based in Houston’s Third Ward, the Project Row Houses are the physical embodiment of local African-American art. Composed of a group of shotgun houses, restored in 1993, these houses serve as an art gallery. Perusing through them can be a great way to experience a piece of local culture while sober in Houston.

Take a Ferry to Crystal Beach

Stretching across a full 7 miles of the Bolivar peninsula, taking a ferry from Houston and spending the day at Crystal Beach isn’t just a fun outing in the summers, but presents a great opportunity to watch some wild dolphins if you keep your eyes open during the ferry rides. While not technically in Houston, the ferry ride out of town is your best bet to watch these friendly sea mammals.

Admire Kingspoint Mullet

More than just a mall slowly breaking apart off the side of the freeway, The Mullet is a massive collection of amazing graffiti art spray painted all over the old Almeda Mall. This place is a space for various famous local artists and muralists. While not officially sanctioned, The Mullet is doubtlessly proof of Houston’s artistic genius, something the city has in abundance.

Play Catch on an Open Field

Aside from going around town exploring its many places of tranquility, art and reflection, you can take the time for some much-needed emotional and physical therapy by engaging in the extremely satisfying game of catch while sober in Houston.

Explore Your Spirituality at Rothko Chapel

Based on the works of influential painter Mark Rothko, the Rothko Chapel is a non-denominational chapel meant to help anyone of any belief or tradition come to a place where they can pray or meditate, contemplate, and reflect. These are all incredibly important for addiction treatment – in order to truly overcome addiction, you have to be able to face what you might have done in the past, and forgive yourself.

Hit Up the Public Library

Public libraries are more than just a place for reading – that’s what you have a couch at home for. Instead, you could pop by the library and see what kind of community events they have going on, or get involved in one of the many possible community engagements the library organizes to help the city, and provide resources for educating kids.

Visit the Art Car Museum

A must-see for anyone with even a modicum of interest in all things car and vintage, the Houston Art Car Museum is the perfect installation to take a trip through the history books of the American automobile. From old builds to car-based art installations, the Art Car Museum is an amazing place to head to in search of new ideas, or just for fun.

Ultimately, the idea behind finding new things to do while sober in Houston and undergoing addiction treatment isn’t to distract yourself from the temptation of addiction, but to rediscover a new way to live life and enjoy it, as well as building new hobbies and finding new personal triumphs along the way. Hobbies – especially the constructive kind – can bring a lot of good by acting as coping mechanisms for many of life’s hardships.

This list is comparatively tiny to the sheer volume of activities and bustling opportunities in Houston. One long tour through the city is never the same as the last, and you’ll always find something new – a new place to discover, a new thing to do, a new sight to see, a new sound to hear.

AS long as you keep your eyes, ears, and mind open, you’ll find that live can be exciting, fun and fulfilling without a single drop of alcohol, or any other substance.

Why Community Is Important For Recovery

Posted on January 11, 2018January 11, 2018 by JohnAdmin

It’s important for every single person in recovery to feel empowered and inspired. We need to believe in ourselves if we want to accomplish anything in our lifetime – but it’s harder for people who struggle with addiction to believe in themselves than it might be for others. Sometimes, an addiction can feel stifling – it steals a person’s agency, and saps at their will. That’s why community is important for recovery.

Alone, addiction will consume you. Alone, addiction can destroy you.

But you’re not alone. And if you’re not alone, but with people who believe in you, then they can help you realize the importance of believing in yourself.

Ultimately, addiction is the journey of an individual fighting their way out of a persistent and oppressive cycle of addiction. You must accept your problem, make a commitment to fight the addiction, find a way to quit for good, and come to terms with all mistakes and actions so you can find peace for the future. It’s not just about being passionate and strong-willed – it’s about compromise, forgiving yourself, and seeing just how far your capacity for hope stretches.

Because of this, having others is important. It’s a long and difficult road ahead, and the support and motivation that others bring to the table is necessary if you want to make it through. To fight addiction, you’ll need your friends, you’ll need your family, and ultimately, you’ll need to understand community is important for recovery, and you want people you can trust and open up to.

Addiction And Isolation

Isolation feeds addiction. Think of the human soul as a mirror, and a shape within the mirror. The only way to clearly see ourselves is through the mirrors others help hold up to us. Some mirrors are twisted and warped, giving us a false image of ourselves.

Others are clear and truthful, sometimes painfully so. We have the power to shape ourselves, and change what we see in those reflections when we interact with others – but it’s not easy, and it takes time spent with other people to truly help us see the changes we make, and adjust.

When we’re alone, we can’t tell what the shape in our mirror looks like with nothing to reflect off of. It’s impossible for us to objectively look inside, without some sort of inner bias, either derogatory or complimentary. So, when addiction takes a hold of you and grips tight on your shape, its changes are hard to see alone.

Over time, the changes become more drastic – and with addiction comes regret, shame through stigma, and self-doubt. Even when masked with aggressive self-importance, these negative emotions feed negative behaviors, reinforcing a twisted self-image.

Without others to hold a mirror up to what we’re turning into, it’s difficult to realize that you’re hurting yourself – and that it’s time to turn around. And even when you know where the problem lies, for many it often feels too late to do something about it. That negativity grows without anything to counter it, without anyone to tell you differently.

In isolation, addiction feeds itself, and that’s why community is important for recovery. But if we can find others to help us see who we are, and what we must change, and others yet who can show us a version of who we might be, and what we can still do, then there’s hope, and that’s all anyone ever needs.

Why We Need Each Other

Some people help us see our flaws clearly, without judgment or bias. Some people help us see our strengths, and realize their potential. We all need people like that in our lives, to help us overcome some of life’s greatest challenges without cannibalizing our own spirit with negativity and self-doubt. Community is important for recovery not only to have a group of supporting people, but to see within ourselves what we might not be able to.

It’s not a selfish way to live – rather, it’s a reciprocal philosophy. Not only are you at the center of your own network of loved ones, but you’re part of someone else’s network. By aspiring to be the kind of person who can help others shape themselves into someone better, kinder, and more loving, you’re taking massive steps away from addiction and towards a life with more meaning and fulfilment.

We all need each other, in some shape or form. We need social bonds, both close and far, abstract and concrete. We need our partners and families, our friends, and closest loved ones – and we need greater concepts, like society and community. Understanding how these concepts affect an individual’s problem with addiction has to do with understanding why we all need to be social, and what we miss by struggling with loneliness.

Beyond those we care about the most, we need groups and communities into which we can belong. While having a family, or a family of friends is important, it’s equally important to feel that our lives are well-lived by having a greater impact on those around us – inspiring others in a recovery community to stay strong and stick to their treatment, for example. This sense of community is important for recovery and for long term success.

Why Your Recovery Needs A Support Group

A support group is more than a circle of people meeting regularly to discuss their problems. It’s an opportunity for people to accept their problem, and trust others enough to talk about it openly and honestly.

And with enough time, a support group is a place where people in long-term recovery can help change someone else’s life for the better, by giving them hope and showing them what can be done, and how what might seem impossible is, in fact, completely doable.

Support groups come in all forms. You could find a local independent support group, or one connected to an organization or treatment center. You can even turn your tightest circle of friends into a support group, and inspire them to tackle their own problems like you tackled addiction.

Community Is Important For Recovery And Continued Sobriety

Sobriety means to be clean, and sober – but fighting addiction is about much more than just seeking to stay sober. Addiction is a life-changing event, and there’s no coming back from it. The only way out, is forward and through. And when you’re done, you’ll be someone else. You have to be someone else in order to defeat addiction – and that can be both scary, and incredibly taxing.

This is because when addiction takes hold of a person, it becomes not only a source of grief and problems, but a coping mechanism for all those problems. It blinds people to what’s around them, and stunts a person’s ability to deal with life.

In recovery – and even in sobriety – coping without drugs whenever something happens is difficult, especially if it’s traumatic. But with the right people, and the right treatment, you can be ready to face any challenge in recovery. The key lies in finding that a community is important for recovery, and trusting that the community believes in you, and therein trusting yourself.

Benefits Of Sobriety

Posted on January 5, 2018 by JohnAdmin

The benefits of sobriety include many instantaneously obvious perks, the biggest being that you’re guaranteed survive your addiction days.

But beyond the fact that you get to live past an early age and stay sane enough to experience life around you as it occurs, there are many benefits of sobriety – many of which become apparent quite early on in recovery, and some of which become major perks down the line, decades after.

It goes without saying that staying sober is very difficult, especially at first. But it’s absolutely worth every bit of emotional energy and stress. Here are a few of the benefits of sobriety:

Better Health

Drug addiction causes different health problems largely depending on the drugs you took. For example, alcohol is notorious for causing liver damage – but excessive alcohol intake can also lead to obesity-related illnesses, as well as kidney damage, and even brain damage.

Excessive stimulants, such as amphetamines and cocaine, can cause serious heart strain and increase your chance of a stroke, as well as reducing appetite and often leading to unhealthy weight loss and nutrient deficiency.

Right off the bat, the first thing you can count on when going sober is that you’re going to be healthier. Every drug comes with side effects, but their addictive nature means that over time, substance abuse is likely to leave some long and lasting scars both physically and mentally.

While some cases of abuse are so severe that permanent damage is inevitable, a healthy lifestyle after years of abuse can still give you an excellent quality of life and improve both your mental and physical health. However, reversing the effects of drug use to reap the benefits of sobriety may take months, or years, and a disciplined healthy lifestyle.

Better Looks

Even though many manage to hide it during initial stages of abuse, excessive substance use does often leads to excessive weight gain (through alcohol) or weight loss (through stimulants). In both cases, the appetite-suppression or junk calories of drug consumption leads to the development of terrible eating habits, and deficiencies.

In addition to often leading people to neglect their nutrition, prolonged substance abuse may lead to other illnesses, a weakened and assaulted neuroimmune system, poor skin health (either due to the drugs themselves, poor nutrition, bad hygiene or self-harm), and a very messy or unattractive appearance due to memory loss, frequent blackouts and more.

More Time

Being addicted takes time. It takes time to find and procure drugs, it takes time to get high, and it takes an especially long time to recover from a high. Moreover, the time lost in blackouts or in emergency rooms further lends credence to the argument that one of the benefits of sobriety and giving up drugs can save you an enormous amount of time. Sobriety isn’t just about skipping out on a high, but also about avoiding the risks and side effects of long-term excessive drug abuse.

It’s not just that you lose time through addiction – you also lose the time spent forging friendships and working your way up the ladder in your own personal career. Many people go through recovery having a long road ahead of them when it comes to making up for their past mistakes – and making up for that lost time is impossible without that first crucial step towards lasting recovery.

More Money

Addiction is costly. One reason why it often ruins people financially is because there is a drug for every class and economic status. The more money someone has, the more they can afford expensive designer drugs – and as a person’s financial status changes, they will find another, much more affordable (and potentially more dangerous) way to get high.

Extreme examples include using mouthwash or other cheap toiletries as substitutes for alcohol, or even worse, synthesizing drugs at home and risking injury or death in the process.

Even just skipping the booze can massively change the way you spend your money, and in up to 7 percent of men, it could save you over $100 a week. For people with serious addiction issues, and a multitude of different substances, the benefits of sobriety could completely change their finances and even help them get their leg up on life again.

Stronger Relationships

Addiction tears through romantic relationships like a knife through butter – it’s incredibly difficult to deal with being in a relationship with an addict, and it is equally difficult to nurture a relationship with someone while you struggle with addiction.

In the short-term, the solution is to put the relationship on ice, or use it to empower yourself and your journey through recovery. Being in a committed relationship with another human being is more than having a roommate or a good friend. Loyalty and admiration for one another can be considered the tentpoles of a successful relationship – and when you’re struggling with addiction, compromising and making selfless choices can be incredibly hard. You’re compelled, more than ever before, to indulge and give in to personal temptations – and in turn, you’re often bound to hurt the people you love the most before things get better.

But by earnestly quitting and going sober, you have a shot at reviving or strengthening these bonds, and bringing the relationship back stronger than ever before.

Stronger Friendships

Much like romantic relationships, friendships can be torn apart by addiction. While your friends aren’t as intimately close to you as two people in a committed relationship would be, the bond between friends still means that addiction can cut a swathe through more than just your own life, and leave those you care about hurt by your actions.

Mending those relationships, and creating stronger friendships is one of the benefits of sobriety and the recovery process. Not only that – often, sobriety gives you the opportunity to make brand new friends as well, and meet all sorts of interesting people.

The Opportunity to Live Life

Ultimately, you’ll never live life again if you choose to reject sobriety. Being high is no way to spend life. You miss out on everything that makes life great – your mind clouds over, your senses go dull, and you gradually lose the ability to remember things. That is, in more ways than one, death rather than life.

But by going sober, you regain the ability to see life as it is, and live it. That can come with pain and sadness, and with the burden of seeing life through a clear mind, but it also comes with joy, happiness, and the potential to feel the love and admiration of your closest friends and family for years to come.