Solo sobriety isn’t unheard of, even if it’s a challenge. Often enough, people don’t need rehab, AA, group therapy or other recovery programs to get through their addiction issue – instead, they hold onto their own discipline and by sheer willpower, force their way through the early stages of the recovery, and follow through with a homemade system for keeping sober.
How people do it solo depends entirely on them – some use alternative activities to keep themselves busy and reduce stress when they feel the urge to drink or take anything. They might meditate or do yoga – or be more proactive, replacing addiction with sports. In other cases, some people develop an iron will and simply refuse to listen to any urges and temptations until they feel they’re safely out of the danger of relapsing.
There are a lot of ways to get to sobriety, and deciding to do it alone is just fine. However, many are skeptical about whether it’s really possible or feasible, especially in the long-term.
Possible, But Not Easy
Addiction recovery is never easy – if it were, then addiction itself wouldn’t be much of an issue. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few degrees of difficulty between different recovery options. However, the difficulty isn’t just objective – much of it must do with what works best for you. That’s why it’s very difficult to suggest a single best option for anybody struggling with their addiction – it’s up to each one to find what works best for them, either through research and experimentation or luck.
Tackling addiction alone is one of the harder choices, simply because you’re going to have little support. You may have the verbal support of friends and family, but if your recovery is something you want to take on alone then be prepared for a rough road ahead. But most importantly, never be discouraged. It’s not uncommon to hear from people that recovering alone is a bad idea, or even impossible. Some people advocate so strongly for their version of recovery that they forget that others exist, or even discredit them. All that effectively does is spread fear among those trying hard to get better that if this doesn’t work for them, nothing will – an extremely damaging strategy in the long-term.
The truth is anything will work if it works, but the hard part is finding out if it does. No one can decide that for you.
Defining Your Solo Sobriety
Solo rehabilitation is basically defined by you. What do you consider solo? Are you looking for a way to recover without the intervention of professional help? Does that mean you’re willing to take a helping hand from friends and family when you look like you need it? Or are you walking this path entirely on your own, entirely adamant about taking your health into your own hands?
If you believe in the role will play in life, then getting sober on your own is perhaps the ultimate definition of the strength of will in addiction recovery. Some programs teach us that addiction is not something we can help – while it’s true that most people can’t control their descent into addiction, it doesn’t mean that it’s not for us to get better. Think of it this way – it’s not your fault someone pushed you face-first into the ground. But if you don’t get back up, then that’ll be on you.
Addressing Mental Health
If you’re prepared to tackle sobriety alone, then you must understand the biggest hindrance to many seeking to get off their addiction – a broken mental state. Regardless of if your addiction caused or fed any mental problems you might have, issues like anxiety and depression can tempt us to slip into extremely negative states – and make reaching for a cocktail, a pill or something else all too simple of a solution.
You must take care of your body and your mind if you want to get better, and that means being rigorous, and strict. Go on a proper healthy diet. Go on regular runs. Hit the gym. Join group activities like hiking and kayaking. Spend every minute working, either on yourself, or your career, until you’re happy – happy with who you are, and how far you’ve come.
You Can Always Seek Help
There’s really no such thing as committing so a single path of recovery and foregoing all other options. The objective truth is that on the journey to sobriety, all roads are lanes on a massive highway. You can choose to join group therapy, go to a sober living home, or seek out the help of a therapist to ease you through your recovery. Yu can go to rehab, or deal with the withdrawal on your own.
Regardless of what’s factually or statistically the best option, going with your gut is a wonderful way of figuring out your own path in the tricky and complicated world of addiction recovery. And even if you decide to deal with sobriety on your own, there’s no shame in reaching out and asking others for help in trying times. We all have our moments when it’s extremely tempting to just give up and give in, break the promises we’ve made to each other, and listen to that little voice in our heads making excuses for every misstep.
It’s true that in most cases, willpower doesn’t have much to do with whether you get addicted to a substance, physically and/or emotionally. But willpower is a massive factor in whether you’re going to master sobriety. This is partial because you’re battling yourself, and what you think you want, while at the same time facing the fact that you can’t just turn off the temptation to go back to the booze, the pills or the stuff when things get tough.
It’ll take time, for some more than for others, but eventually, you’d reach a point where your past with addiction truly lies behind you. And when you’ve reached that point, you’ll know that recovery is recovery. It doesn’t matter how you achieved yours, what matters is that you made it happen.