14 Reasons Being Sober Makes Your Life Better

When you abuse substances for extended periods of time, it exaggerates any mental health issues that you have. This is especially true since you’re likely not taking care of your physical or mental health as it is while suffering from addiction. However, living a sober life will help improve your physical, and in particular, your mental health. When someone is struggling with substance abuse, their friends most likely also use or drink with them or introduce them to the substance they are now abusing in the first place. Many of these old friends are often waiting to welcome you back into their lives, wanting to see you heal and progress into a happy, healthy, and sober life. It offers residents more freedom to come and go as they please. It often acts as a bridge between rehabilitation and preparing members to live independently – drug- and alcohol-free. While residents aren’t required to have completed a rehab program before entry, many of them have. The tools that individuals learn in intensive rehab programs may set them up for more sustainable success in a sober living house.

• Any information published on this website or by this brand is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, and you should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.
• Residents’ insurance may, however, help cover addiction treatments – like therapy.
• The fortunate ones are the ones who find their way to a great treatment facility.
• In these programs, it’s customary to receive plastic chips as you progress to the one-year mark, at which time you receive a bronze coin.
• Whеthеr уоu’rе mоvіng bасk hоmе wіth fаmіlу оr уоu’rе rеlосаtіng tо а nеw рlасе fоr а frеѕh ѕtаrt, hеrе аrе а fеw hеlрful tips on how to live a sober life.

As you consume more and more alcohol or drugs, you’ll likely stop eating a balanced diet altogether. Before you know it, you’ll choose not to physically take care of yourself at all. The only way to get you out of this rut of not taking care of yourself is sobriety. Some of the immediate changes you will need to make will be obvious—like not hanging around the people that you used with or obtained drugs from. After all, you can’t hang around your drug dealer or old drinking buddies and expect to remain sober for very long. All in all, deciding on sober living in Maine and choosing an environment that reflects a positive recovery system is a key to lifelong sobriety. Throughout the United States, some of the sober living homes are owned by religious groups or private organizations.

Deciding Which Sober Living Home is Right for You

However, the nine-month period is also common, especially if the treatment goals are slow-going or also if an individual is undergoing post-acute withdrawal symptoms. Residents build a sense of community – Sober living residents attend 12-step meetings daily with other sober living residents. Typically, the residents are also required to attend a house meeting with the other residents of the home. Overall, this builds a sense of support and camaraderie as an individual progresses in early recovery. For this reason, the friendships built in sober living often last a long time after treatment has been completed. All in all, sober living homes allow individuals in recovery to develop independence, thrive in sober environments, and further establish themselves. Specifically, in treatment settings, sober living homes will combine independence with the overall benefit of 24/7 attainable and observant care. This means that individuals in sober living will be able to meet with clinicians or counselors whenever they need to.

And if you’ve tried getting sober in the past and failed, that may be weighing on you as proof that you aren’t good enough. You can begin to move onto better things in your life without the distraction of substance use weighing you down. Maybe you’re in a relationship that’s going nowhere because you can’t see how you could get anything better. Drinking or getting high puts you in a haze in your life, and you may find that you’re missing out on some amazing opportunities. Maybe you’re stuck in a dead-end job because you can’t manage to go above and beyond in your performance. At the end of the week, we blow off steam and release some stress by tossing a few back or getting high with our friends.

Donald Trump Donates Part of Salary to Alcoholism Research

Shame is having negative beliefs about yourself and your self-worth. Guilt is having negative feelings about your past behavior. People in recovery can experience a lot of shame simply for having become addicted in the first place. Once you do return to work, it’s important to create a budget and take steps to safeguard yourself as work stress can be a relapse trigger. But it is possible to take baby steps and get your finances in order. Just keep in mind that your improvements won’t happen overnight. Depending on the type of dependency, PAWS can last from six months to two years after you stop using drugs or alcohol. There are a variety of tools available that can support your path to sobriety.

We treat a variety of addictions, ranging from alcoholism to heroin, meth, and prescription pill addictions. And it’s very important to fill that time or it can become easy to slip back into old habits. For one thing, you’ll have more resources to contribute to things like volunteering or donating to charities if you wish. But you can also act as a role model to others working to get sober.

So how do you go about pursuing all these benefits of the sober life? One of the big tricks is to take things one step at a time. When you’re using drugs, alcohol or Sober Home otherwise, your priorities in life become warped. That substance starts to act like gravity, and your need for it pulls everything in your life out of perspective.

In addition, you might be able to connect with people on a deeper level. Your sleep should improve, as well as your savings account. Hopefully, all of these things can help motivate you to get your addiction under control. Reach out to a supportive friend or family member or find resources to help you begin living a sober life. Most likely, insurance will not cover this type of housing, because it is not considered a mental health treatment center. Since sober living homes are often financially independent, they usually do not accept insurance. Residents’ insurance may, however, help cover addiction treatments – like therapy.

Seven Lessons I’ve Learned During Seven Years of Sobriety

In fact, approximately 40 percent make New Year’s resolutions with motivation to change. Interestingly enough, however, only 8 percent of Americans manage to keep and commit to their resolutions throughout the entire year. This is typically a result of unrealistic resolutions/expectations or a lack of discipline and motivation. You are right going to an AA or NA meeting can be a great way to use your time and reduce boredom. In addition, it is a beneficial way to gain support from individuals who can relate as they are going through what you are going through.

The most obvious benefit is that sober living in Maine offers individuals secure places where they can heal, grow, and live. By living at sober houses in Maine, individuals can get away from the temptations that their own hometowns bring, such as drug use, party-going friends, and peer pressure. Some of the sober living arrangements have a resident manager that can oversee and enforce house rules while other sober homes take more of a social approach to treatment. This is where a group of residents will pay rent and upkeep the home as if that home was their own. Fоllоw thеѕе guіdеlіnеѕ аnd уоu ѕhоuld ѕtау асtіvе and live a sober life. Rеаllу thіѕ іѕ thе tір of thе ісеbеrg аnd thеrе аrе mаnу оthеr fасеtѕ to lіvіng sober іn rесоvеrу. If уоu аnd уоur trеаtmеnt tеаm hаvе dіѕсuѕѕеd уоur dіѕсhаrgе frоm sober living, уоu mау bе thіnkіng аbоut уоur rеturn hоmе аnd hоw уоu wіll соntіnuе уоur lіfеѕtуlе оf ѕоbrіеtу оnсе уоu’rе thеrе. A sober living hоmе іѕ а ѕаfе аnd рrоtесtіvе hаvеn аftеr rеhаb аnd thе trаnѕіtіоn bасk hоmе саn bе dіffісult fоr ѕоmе реорlе, еѕресіаllу іf thеу lасk а ѕtrоng ѕuрроrt ѕуѕtеm bасk hоmе. Another of the surprising hidden benefits of living a sober life is that you will establish deeper relationships.

What do sober people do for fun?

Get through each day without a drink, smoke, hit, dab, what-have-you. Once you accomplish that, you can feel ready to take on the next. By structuring your goals this way, each day, you will be constantly find success. Do you have questions about mental illness, mental health treatments or resources to get help in your community?

The first step to living a sober lifestyle is to understand your triggers. Knowing what triggers you and what makes you behave in a way that you would otherwise avoid can be a valuable tool in your sobriety. Once you find these triggers, you can begin to create a plan of action to help you avoid the situations or behaviors that cause you to relapse. However, there are different ways to benefit from these programs. For someone who’s completed a program at a drug rehab, recovery fellowships are an opportunity to network with other recovering addicts and to begin getting acclimated to the local recovery community. It can also be a chance to find a sober buddy or a sponsor (see tip no. 5). But no matter what you hope to get from a twelve-step program, the reality is your chances of sustaining your sobriety long-term is higher when you’re part of a recovery fellowship. Most people in the throes of active addiction lose years, or sometimes even decades, to substance abuse.

You may also need to change your route to work or home in order to avoid any triggers, or people, places, or things that make you want to use drugs or drink again. If you’re in recovery from a substance use disorder, you already know how much work it took to achieve sobriety, and you’ll want to do everything possible to avoid having a relapse. It may seem that living a sober life relapse is the last thing that could happen to you, but the truth is they are very common for people new to recovery. It’s extremely common for individuals to leave rehab feeling confident that they have learned everything that they need to know but need the extra ounce of support. Dоn’t сut уоurѕеlf оff frоm gаіnіng nеw knоwlеdgе аbоut hоw to live sober.

All of these support groups share a common goal to stay clean and sober. It may take time and effort, but it’s possible to build a sober life community of others who share the same goals of sobriety. Only by disentangling the source of emotional pain in our memories with our habitual coping mechanisms can we ever reverse the process of deep learning that leads one to addiction. This is one of the goals of addiction treatment using tools like cognitive behavioral therapy . If the next time youget high or the next time you drink dominates your life, then it’s highlylikely that your friends do the same.