10 Tips For Maintaining Sobriety From Drugs

How to Obtain Sobriety from Drugs

Successfully completing a drug rehab program is a great feeling. Your body and mind are healing, and you are looking forward to a rewarding future. Sobriety from drugs is a challenge, but there are many tips that can help you from relapsing.

Stay on track in your recovery with a relapse prevention plan. Click here to learn how to create one for yourself.

10 Tips for Maintaining Sobriety from Drugs

Sobriety from drugs is possible, and the following tips will help you refrain from cravings and temptations.

1. Keep a journal. In the front of the journal write short-term goals. In daily entries record how you achieve your goals, which ones are the hardest, and the challenges you incurred during the process.
2. Join a gym, run, bicycle, or walk. Exercise is good for your physical and mental health. It relieves stress, improves sleep, improves mild depression, and boost your overall mood.
3. Evaluate your friendships. Anyone who is not completely supportive of your recovery efforts should be taken off your list of friends. Keep old friends and make new ones who offer the support you need when you have a challenging day and who are always there to listen when you need to talk.
4. If you have children, get involved in hobbies with them. Sports, dance, music, crafts, art, writing, and other activities can bring you closer to your children and reinforce your desire for sobriety from drugs.
5. Continue to educate yourself on the dangers of substance abuse by regularly attending group support meetings and reading educational material.
6. Embrace your life, family, and friends. Make a list of all the wonderful things in your life, and be grateful for them every day.
7. Start your day with prayer, meditation, or some other form of thankfulness and appreciation for being free from drugs.
8. Work on your future. Take adult education classes that will improve your work performance and opportunity for advancement.
9. Learn a new language. It’s a great way to develop mental skills and increase your value on the job.
10. Sign up as a volunteer at a local charity, food kitchen, or library. Helping others is very rewarding and makes you more aware of your own blessings.

How To Stay Sober

Following detox and rehab it’s important to know how to stay sober. During therapy you learned about triggers and how to recognize yours. Triggers can be places, people, and a variety of other things. Did you play a certain rock group when you were doing drugs? That music will always be a trigger. Was anger, depression, or another emotion a factor in your use of drugs? It’s essential to continue with counseling after rehab in order to address the issues that contributed to your addiction.

If not addressed, these emotions can drive you toward relapse. Who were the people that did drugs with you? These people need to be out of your life because they will not support your efforts to remain sober. Never listen to those who tell you it won’t hurt to just do it one time. It can kill you because once your body is free of drugs, the same dose you took the last time may be enough to cause an overdose.

WhiteSands Treatment Centers in Tampa and Fort Myers FL treat each patient as an individual, and the therapy and counseling received is determined after a thorough assessment. Call (877) 855-3470 for more information on how WhiteSands can help you or a loved one beat addiction.

Staying Sober In Early Recovery

It isn’t willpower that keeps you staying sober in early recovery. Learning to drawn on your support people, counselors, therapists, and group therapy is an essential element of your early recovery. You may feel alone or that you are floundering. If that happens, go to your support team, and tell them how you feel. Everyone wants you to succeed and are ready to listen and help. Go to meetings every day or evening. Group support meetings are a powerful tool in helping you get through those first few months and will carry you through years of recovery.

Don’t risk a relapse. Call WhiteSands today, and learn how you can have a healthy long-term recovery from drug addiction.

If you or a loved one needs help with abuse and/or treatment, please call the WhiteSands Treatment at (877) 855-3470. Our addiction specialists can assess your recovery needs and help you get the addiction treatment that provides the best chance for your long-term recovery.