Lives in Recovery

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  • “I’m Right!…No I Am!!”

    Human nature is a funny thing – As human beings we have a variety of experiences, which lead to the development of our ideas, concepts, beliefs, values and principles that we ultimately incorporate into our lives and live by. Some of these (although we embrace them) can change over time, such as:

    Example I : My husband, children and myself always celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents & my sister. It was always important to me to do this. But one day my husband and I moved 800 miles away, causing my circumstances to change. Because of this, the idea, principle and belief that I HAD to celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents and sister at my parent’s house had to change as well. I came to realize that we could still celebrate…but it would just need to be done differently.

    Example II : When I was single I had an idea, belief, principle and value that I didn’t need the “distraction of other people” in my life – (meaning husband and kids). That it would interfere with what “I” needed to do “for me”. However, after getting married and having kids in my life, that idea, belief and value system changed. I came to find that I could have “my” time, but that having them enhanced my life and kept me growing. These changes were overall were easy to accept.

    BUT there are other beliefs, values, ideas and principles that we are often extremely defensive and protective of. I have found this to be especially evident in recovery. Many people in recovery come in through different venues and as a rule each of those people will have very strong feelings about the venue through which they credit their life to having being saved by.

    This becomes most evident when we come across people who don’t see recovery concepts the way “we” do. Now THAT can become an interesting situation given the right circumstances! An example might be something as simple as whether a “new-comer” should make the first move to talk to the “old-timers” or whether “old-timers” should make the first move to meet the “new-comer”. It might not seem like a big deal, but when a person relates one of these factors to being a major contributor to what made the difference in their life between them “living sober” or “dying in addiction” it becomes a REAL big deal.

    Another example is that of “Working a program that includes the 12 steps” and “Not working a program that includes the 12 steps”. Boy oh boy! You get these two groups of discussion together and it can get real eventful sometimes! Why?…Well, because in each group you will find individuals whose lives have been changed as a direct result of the path that they have taken. In each person’s heart and mind this experience is held with very deeply due to their personal experiences, and because of this they can become defensive and often angry at the idea or suggestion of an experience or idea that is different than theirs.

    Basically, whatever “model” we credit to helping save our lives, we often become very defensive of. Whatever we viewed as “saving us” we also view as “love” and so by nature, we want to share that same thing, (love), with others. The problem comes when two different views of “love” collide! The interesting thing is that both parties really often have the same passionate desire, “to help the suffering addict/alcoholic find recovery”. No one person & no one view is wrong in this scenario.  (Truth is defined as how each person sees and believes it to be.)

    “I” believe that we are all made differently because God has individual purposes for each and every one of us. (The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says: “We are in the world to play the role He assigns.”) I have found most recovering folks are VERY passionate about doing just this. We simply have to guard ourselves from putting God in a box that is restricted to just exactly “how” that will be done. Some of us will be used to do the “reaching out” to those who, (for one reason or another), “can’t reach”. Likewise He will use some of us to be “available to” those who DON’T like feeling pushed and will “reach when they’re ready”. I have found that all “I” need to do is be willing to do my part.

    © Rebecca Balko

  • Self Esteem

    Regaining Self Esteem and the Power of Positive Thinking

    Through the process of recovery and working all twelve steps we receive many  blessings.   One of the major changes we go through from this process is re-gaining our self-esteem, or self-worth.  A person’s self-worth is simply his or her perception of oneself, and self-esteem is defined as a realistic respect for or  favorable impression of oneself; self-respect.   Self-esteem refers to what we feel are values, abilities and assets are. Many of us have years of wreckage to repair when we get sober, so this process of rebuilding does not usually happen  overnight.  Years of damage through negative thinking and negative self-talk cannot be changed instantly. It’s only through sobriety that  we get the opportunity to work on these kinds of things.  Besides staying sober one day at a time, there are some things we can do to improve our self-esteem.

    First, we have to be aware of the impact negative self-talk has on our lives.  Without awareness we would not know what we need to work on or change.  When we fill our minds with negative ideas, thoughts  and beliefs we put out negative energy.   All this negativity lowers our self-esteem and self-worth.  If we replace those bad ideas and false beliefs with positive thoughts and affirmations, then eventually we start believing  in ourselves.  Reversing our thinking from things we don’t like about  ourselves to things we do like will have a positive outcome on our  self-esteem.  Try writing down a list of your achievements or things  you like about yourself, or ask your friends what they like about you.  When we  look at these assets on paper, then our defects seem much smaller.  Try working  on your strengths, and your weakness will appear much less important.

    The next  thing you can do is to set some goals for yourself and follow through  with them.  Do something that you always told yourself you wanted  to do, but procrastinated and never got to it.  You may want  to use visualization techniques to help you envision your own personal  goals.  Try to picture, or imagine what you want to achieve.   Remove the word “should” from your vocabulary.  This word  can have a negative connotation, so you may be setting yourself up for  failure.  Avoid a statement like, “I really should go back to college to further my education.”   Replace a phrase like that with something  like this, “I will go back to college to further my education.”     Then,  take the necessary action to make your dreams come true.  Achieving something that you told yourself you couldn’t do will have a positive  effect on your self-esteem.  Making plans for the future and following through with  your plans will give you a sense of accomplishment and achievement.  After all,  sobriety gave us the ability to truly have a life.  We are aware  and present, so now is the time to go out and fulfill our dreams and  desires.

    You may want to take into consideration the idea of making some life changes.  How are you living?   Can you make any changes for the better?  You may  want to ask yourself a few questions about your job and your  relationships with others.   Are you  happy with your job?  Realistically, is there another job that may be more  fulfilling for you?  How are your relationships with others?  Are you  treated with the respect you deserve now that you’re sober, and are you  treating others the same?  Are you spending your free time with people who make  you feel good about yourself?  Making changes in your career or personal life can  obviously have a positive outcome on your psyche.

     

  • Good…Bad

    Why Is It  That When Things Are Going Good, Something Bad Always Happens?

    I know that I  am not the only person who has ever reached that point of utter  frustration or disgusting state of self-pity, who has cried out and  said, “Why does this always happen to me!” Who has ever said, “It seems like every time things start  to go my way, something always has to happen!” I’d like to say that this only  happened in my “early” sobriety, because it always sounds good (It sort  of sounds like it’s no longer a problem for “me”). But that  would only be a lie that temporarily stroked the old ego! The truth is  that it is one of the easiest places to go when things don’t go my way.

    I lived at a  girl’s home many years ago and had a wise old preacher tell me, after  one of my “rants”, that it was part of a process to make us stronger. Of  course, being sober all of 60 days and walking around in a heavy fog, I responded  with, “Huh?” The information that he gave me stayed with me until this  day and went as follows:

    Have you ever bought one of those really cheap  hammers? The kind that is so fragile that if you  hit a hard surface with enough force it would just break? The reason  that happens is  because the metal is full of impurities. But there are the other hammers that are really high dollar and will last a lifetime,  because they contain almost no impurities at all.

    When I would  later learn about the 12-steps and how to work them, I realized that  indeed what he had told me was the truth. I identify my defects of  character and my shortcomings, the very impurities that for so much of  my life caused me to be broken and would ask God to take them from me.  But as I would find out, not everything goes quickly and more is always revealed. I  have found that when things are bad my defects and shortcomings become much clearer. I  then have the option to ask my Creator to remove them from me and as  they are I become stronger in the knowledge and experience that God “is”  always with me and that the moment, no matter how bad, “will pass!” I  also have the option to ignore these defects and allow them to just  settle back in, or better yet, try on my own to make them go away. Either way, nothing changes and I  will remain fractured and easily broken.

    So, in my  final assessment, I see good reason to believe, that during the  difficult times, through the use of the steps, a good sponsor and my  God, who enables me to do everything, to learn what my frailties are and  give them up to Him. I’m afraid I have not reached a point of  “rejoicing” in hardships, but thankfully I have gained the experience, that during  moments of confusion and despair, I can look back and know that I will  be O.K. and that this too shall pass.

    © Rebecca Balko 

  • How You Are Sabotaging Your Own Happiness

    How You Are Sabotaging Your Own Happiness

     

    If you have been in or around addiction enough you may have heard the same tune over and over again from some people. “I’ve tried recovery and it doesn’t work for me.” But what is really going on there? Does recovery not work, or are you just not willing to take the necessary action to recover?

    Self-Sabatoge And Your Recovery

    Denial

    Many addicts don’t even notice they have a problem, so recovery seems pointless. Denial is usually a coping mechanism that some people use so they don’t have to face whatever issues are ailing them. So if you’re unwilling to listen to others who think you might have a problem with drugs, little can be done until you are serious and ready. This is where enabling someone who is in active addiction can actually have the power to kill.

    Unwilling

    Unwilling to change your attitude, behavior, and lifestyle in order to stop using drugs will continue to block you from recovering long-term. It’s honestly that simple. Usually that unwillingness turns into lies and deception in order to protect your addiction.

    Stubborn

    Believing you have all the answers or know what needs to be done without taking any suggestions as it relates to your recovery is another reason many don’t make it back into the rooms. This is usually driven by ego, which brings us to our next point below.

    Ego

    Having an ego is not all that bad, but when it’s a false ego, it can prevent you from allowing yourself to identify with others in the program of recovery. An ego can separate you from others and give you the belief that you either don’t have it as bad as other addicts, or that you are better than them. Either way, it will prevent you from learning. Know-it-alls can’t absorb new information.

    Pride

    Usually pride accompanies that false ego. Being too proud can be the difference between happiness and misery. Pride can get in the way of allowing you to be vulnerable to others. When we are not vulnerable around those who are trying to help us, we can’t absorb the information that can actually change our lives.

    Co-Dependency

    If you are allowing a loved one or partner to dictate and control your life so much so that you are not even attempting to enter rehab or the rooms, then you will continue to spiral deep into your addiction. Sometimes our loved ones think they know what is best for us and literally try to fix you, but no one person can fix you. Listening to people who don’t have your best interest in mind is not safe and will not help you stay sober long-term.

    Resentful

    If you have attempted recovery a few times, you may have built a resentment that 12-step programs, rehabs, sober living environments, and outpatient programs don’t work. The truth is, if you don’t do the work or put in the effort, then these programs will not work. They are not designed to cure you; they are designed to help you keep your addiction in remission. If you are truly committed, honest, willing, and open-minded to recovery, your chances of staying sober long-term are extremely high.

    Recovery Is About Action

    Recovery is about action and if you are not willing to put in the action, it will continue to be difficult to get anything out of it. Stop allowing your thinking to prevent you from actually living a happy, joyous, and free life without the use of drugs and alcohol. Recovery works and it can work for you today if you want it.

    24/7 Addiction Crisis Chat Line: 1-877-975-4837

     

  • Alcohol and Drug Addiction: I Am My Problem

    I remember sometime after being admitted to the hospital for treatment of my chemical addiction I believed that drugs and booze were my problem and that once I was free of them, I would be “just fine”.  I mean it made sense didn’t it? Prior to drinking and drugging I had some problems…who doesn’t? But overall, I didn’t get REALLY messed up behaviorally until I started using. So upon entering treatment and the fog beginning to lift slightly, I got my first glimpse at the disaster, otherwise known as “Rebecca” and summarized that it should be easily fixed, all I needed to do was not use drugs.

    Under The Influence

    Well, needless to say, that was nowhere near the truth. For one thing, I had been regularly under the influence of mood and mind altering chemicals beginning at the age of 15. Prior to 15 I was just beginning 9th grade and fresh out of middle school – having been raised in a modest middle class home, in the same neighborhood, attending the same school system, with all the same friends and attending the same church all of my life until that point. There was not that much trouble to be exposed to, much less get into, up to that point. What ‘s more, 13-19 are the “teen years” where kids generally learn all sorts of living skills, like socialization with their peers, coping skills with anger, fear, etc…and problem solving skills.

    The Real Problem

    Here in lies the first part of the “real” problem….during the majority of those developmental years, I had discovered the use of mood and mind altering chemicals that seemed to take care of problems I did not yet have the experience or maturity to know how to handle. Rather than learning those vital skills, I instead took a shorter easier method and simply learned how to use those chemicals to do for me what I didn’t know how to do. (i.e. ~ Anger or Fear…using chemicals made them go away; Socialization hurdles…using chemicals gave me the confidence to make friends or the numbness to not care; Problem solving…using chemicals made me not feel stressed about problems in my life and enabled me to ignore them for a time). 

    The second part of the “real” problem being faced was that I LOVED being under the influence! Although on the one hand I believed that the chemical use was my only problem and that by removing it I would magically somehow be just fine…there was the other hand, where chemical use was also the only solution by which I’d had any experience as a teenager. I not only couldn’t imagine living life without being under the influence…I had no idea how to, even if I had wanted to ~ which I really didn’t!

    So I went through multiple treatment and recovery programs with one relapse occurring after the first two years sober. I did, a few months later, eventually get clean and by grace stay clean…but  it was a REALLY devastating blow in my early recovery as those same behaviors began to rear their ugly head, (sometimes even worse new ones than I even had in my addiction), and I was TOTALLY clean from all mood and mind altering chemicals!

    Recovery

    I went to talk to my sponsor, horrified at my behavior and fearful that this was somehow a sign or an omen that I wasn’t “really” recovering and that I was headed for relapse. I mean, if I was really serious about my recovery, wouldn’t I be making good decisions and doing the right things? Weren’t chaos and confusion the byproducts of active addiction, or at the very least a lack of desire for personal recovery? What a relief it was as it was explained to me that the problems I was having were not a “sign that I wasn’t serious”, but rather a sign that I was a human being with relatively ZERO life skills, that drugs and booze were actually not my real problem, but rather that “I was”. The dope and booze had helped me to live with myself for a while until even it quit working.

    Now that I was in recovery, I would have the opportunity to address the real problem, which was “me” and to learn how to apply the steps, which would show me how to become fully dependent on a Power greater than myself, would enable me to do just that. It was explained that my self-centeredness and self-direction were what had caused me to have this inability to “live life on life’s terms”. Being clean and sober means now having the opportunity to “learn” how to live without the use of chemicals one day at a time and to receive the gift of finding out that those things in my life that I had such regret and shame over, are the VERY THINGS that enable me to make a difference in the lives of other people!

    Want more? Click here: Rebecca’s Corner

    © Rebecca Balko 2016
  • 4th of July Party Ideas For Alcoholics And Addicts

    4th of July Party Ideas For Alcoholics And Addicts

    What 4th of July party ideas have you come up with now that you are in early recovery from an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs?  This may be the first Independence Day you get to celebrate sober, which makes it extra memorable because you will actually get to be in the moment and experience life as it happens instead of just watch it pass by due to being inebriated by substances.  After all, recognizing the 4th of July is particularly special since it is a holiday all about freedom.

    4th of July Party Ideas

    Celebrating July 4th sober is an absolute gift!  It’s a holiday worthy of properly commemorating with others. 

    Related: 4Th Of July 2016 Delray Beach

    Barbecue 

    Think about getting a large group together at a local Public Park or field.  You can put up tents, set up under a pavilion, locate picnic tables, or bring a folding table to set up.  Be sure to coordinate who brings plastic utensils, plates, and cups!  Don’t forget about making your favorite entrees because this is the main part of your barbecue!  Make sure you have your cooler filled with your meats, chickens, fruit, veggies, salads, cheese, non-alcoholic drinks, and ice!  Don’t leave out the ketchup, mustard, relish, or mayo!  You might want some chips and cookies too!  If you aren’t certain whether or not the location you picked to celebrate your 4th of July celebration at has a grill outside, be sure that you have a back up plan!  It might be a good idea to bring a mini portable grill or an actual grill with an extension cord, as long as there is an outlet somewhere at the location you picked!  Oh, don’t forget about bringing some sparklers and fireworks for later either!

    Picnic

    If you want to go for one of smaller 4th of July party ideas, you could always plan for a picnic at a field, garden, beach, park, mountains, trails, or golf coarse in the afternoon or evening to recognize the holiday.  You can give your picnic a 4th of July theme by getting foods that are red, white, and blue.  A good example would be adding strawberries, blueberries, and cut up bananas in a container for a healthy and all-American tribute to the nation!  Don’t forget about bringing a red, white, and blue blanket, so that you can lay it out for you and your friends to sit on while you eat, chit-chat, and rejoice in your festivities!  Who needs to drink on the 4th of July when you are surrounded by good friends that you can open up, be honest with, laugh, and joke around with?  Certainly not you!

    Parade

    Do you want more action this Independence Day?  More 4th of July party ideas include parades!  Check your local newspaper or research online to see if there will be a 4th of July parade in honor of the holiday near you.  If you end up going to the parade, be sure to keep yourself accountable, especially being new to sobriety.  Parades may be triggering on holidays because there a lot of people intoxicated.  Ways to keep yourself accountable that can prevent you from being tempted to drinking on the 4th of July include calling your sponsor and/or sober supports if you feel you’re struggling, removing yourself from negative settings when you feel uncomfortable by walking away, going to the parade with sober people, and not endangering yourself by roaming around looking to walk into a bar to pick up a drink.  If you are feeling anxious, you may just want to leave and work with another alcoholic and/or addict.  However, you may find yourself having a great time if you go with sober individuals and focus on the beauty in life.  It can be great when you come together with people in recovery to spend time with one another instead of having to turn to substances to enjoy entertainment.  You actually get to enjoy the fun – live music, floats, colors, and fireworks presented to you in addition to remembering it!

    With these 4th of July party ideas, you are sure to have a fantastic holiday.  Early recovery from an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs can take you away from living your life to the fullest and keep you from being actively involved with others.  The 4th of July is centered on freedom, so rejoice because you’re sober this year!

    Are you struggling in your sobriety or still active in an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs?  Contact The Watershed for help today.

  • Understanding Emotional Sobriety

    Emotional sobriety is a term used that describes the recovery process past physical sobriety. We find that just putting down the drugs and alcohol is not enough for an addict or alcoholics to stay clean and sober long-term. More work has to be done in order to maintain recovery.

    How to Protect Emotional Sobriety

    The best ways to ensure you keep your emotional sobriety in check can begin with being aware of your daily typical needs.  You can’t expect yourself to be helping others in your program of recovery and doing the next right thing when you aren’t adequately taking care of yourself.  When you aren’t thinking clearly and aren’t in the right state of mind, it’s usually because you haven’t met your own needs for basic functioning.  This can be dangerous for an addicted individual because it can lead them to believing in disillusionment.  When basic needs like hunger, loneliness, comfort, and rest are taken care of, be sure to remain aware of dangers and keep in check that as a recovering alcoholic and/or addict, you are maintaining your program of recovery!

    Beware of Dangers

    Meeting Makers Make It (when you work it)

    Be careful you aren’t inadvertently beginning to slip on regular 12-step meeting attendance.  This can leave you feeling negative, making you sit and grovel in feelings of self-pity.  This can push you to the times where you know should be picking up the phone, dialing your sober supports, reaching out, and especially veering away from the subject of yourself.  Protect your emotional sobriety by asking how their days are going too!  Getting out of your head and talking with another alcoholic and/or addict will always save the day.

    Attitude Of Gratitude

    There can be a change in character if a recovering individual becomes noticeably more judgemental, short-tempered, aggravated, belligerent, prideful, or acts out in other ways.  Nobody is perfect, even when it comes to working a program in recovery.  However, by continuing to work at looking at what character defects exist and instead focus on transforming them into assets, a total change in attitude doesn’t have to pose as much of a danger to your emotional sobriety.  It can instead serve you by keeping you sober because it allows you to continue working on yourself in your program of recovery through a daily reprieve.

    Think Think Think

    Alcoholics and addicts are known to obsess.  It’s a main component attributed with these diseases.  Protecting your emotional sobriety is dependent on you straying from being stuck inside your head.  When you’re trapped cycling on replay in your mind, you allow your head to play devilish tricks on you.  This is where self-sabotage can come into play and negative behaviors can unfold if you aren’t careful about your thinking.

    Get Out Of Your Own Way

    When taking part in behaviors that constitute as self-sabotage, emotional sobriety goes out the window.  Self-sabotaging behaviors are defined as actions where individuals commit actions that cause damage to themselves.  Self-sabotage can occur when everything in an individual’s life is going along fine but they are so unfamiliar with the feeling of contentedness that they don’t know how to accept and maintain it so they instead are compelled to undermine their success by creating chaos in their life. 

    Additional ways to pull yourself out so that you can avoid pitfalls of endangering your emotional sobriety can include keeping yourself honest with yourself.  Understand what’s pressing you by writing down your thoughts.  When you aren’t being honest with yourself, you’re hurting yourself most by preventing the truth of the reality from being known.  This is what ultimately results in self-sabotage!  Instead of allowing your actions to lead you down this path, try to implement healthier choices and behaviors by treating your emotional sobriety like your physical health. Understand your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being are all equally important.  When one of these is off balance, it can affect one another.

    Are you stuck in the spiral of active addiction to alcohol and/or drugs but unsure where to turn?  Contact The Watershed today for help.  You don’t have to suffer in silence alone from this seemingly hopeless disease.  You can recover when you call today and walk free from obsession.

  • What To Do When You’re Struggling In Recovery

    What To Do When You’re Struggling In Recovery

    When you’re an alcoholic and/or addict whose struggling during a difficult time in your recovery, it can be challenging to appreciate life.  However, you can be grateful for each day you make it through without picking up a drink and/or drug.  Instead of focusing on where could be stronger in your recovery, you should look at how far you’ve come along and use it as motivation to continue along in your journey. 

    Struggling In Recovery

    It’s through the painful circumstances alcoholics and addicts are pushed into recovery mode.  Pain can cause enough willingness to get better because people can’t stand to endure the pain any longer.  Struggle can make or break a person.  It’s the difference between pushing a person to get to where they need to be to recover.  Nobody relishes in suffering, but it’s through pain that alcoholics and addicts like yourself come to necessary realizations, become motivated, and are finally able to move forward by finding ways to truly appreciate life with a completely new outlook through a way of thinking they may have never otherwise had.

    Meditate

    Stopping to calm yourself seems obvious, but it can be forgotten easily.  Going back to the basics can be vital for you during struggling times.  If you’re frustrated, try sitting down for a moment, relaxing yourself, and closing your eyes.  Take a deep breathe and focus on your senses.  Listen to the sounds you hear and remind yourself you’re at peace.  Life can become unbelievably hectic but remember to catch a breath because otherwise you tire yourself out running around with high expectations of yourself.  You are only human and you are bound to fall short at times.  It’s okay that you’re not perfect, but you can pick yourself back up and still accomplish what needs to be done.  Take a breath because you’re getting along fine.

    Sober Supports

    During times of struggle, it can be essential to reach out to others, especially sober supports and close trusted friends.  Building and maintaining authentic relationships is crucial.  A key piece to this is actually being able to take the time to genuinely ask about how their day went, listen to what they are saying, and become engaged in the conversation.  Being able to react and having the ability to be present for the conversation is a gift of sobriety.  When active in addiction, it’s likely your head was in the clouds because your only focus was on substances.  Keeping in mind that you have the ability to do this in sobriety can help you appreciate life more, even in times of struggle.  It should make you want to reach out to the people you care about most, especially when you’re going through problematic times.

    Sobriety can give an alcoholic and/or addict like yourself a new perspective that allows you to appreciate life when you’re going through rough times in your recovery.

    Want to talk to someone now? Click here!

  • What Are You Afraid Of? Facing Fears In Recovery

    What Are You Afraid Of? Facing Fears In Recovery

     

    When you were active in your addiction drinking and abusing drugs heavily, it’s not absurd to assume that you questioned what the driving force was for your character defects.  Now that you’re recovering from your addiction to alcohol and/or drugs, it should be apparent how self-centered fear caused you to react in certain ways.  With this, taking a deeper look at the bigger question can help you get down to the causes and conditions to do some character building: what are you afraid of after all?

    What Fear Keeps Stopping You?

    Fear can take many alcoholics and addicts back out to drinking and/or abusing drugs because they live in the feeling that prevents them from living their newfound way of life in sobriety.  It instead keeps them trapped.  Where do these fears come from and how can understanding what are you afraid of actually help in correcting your self-centered fear problem? Coming out of self-denial and acknowledging these fears can help to remove the power they hold over you.  It can take the weight off your shoulders that they may be putting on your life, which may be putting pressure on you and ultimately making you vulnerable as a ticking time-bomb for relapsing on the addiction you have to substances.

    Fear of failure

    Nested deep within a fear of failure can be a past of having been raised by parents that overlooked your behavior and anything you produced.  Having extremely critical parents may have toppled over into your adulthood and now you are suffering the consequences because you may be overly concerned about not measuring up to the rest of the world.

    Fear of the opinions of others

    There may be a fear about what other people think, but this needs to be let go.  It can come from wanting to control what other people think inside their brain about you, but realizing that your part in this is based off self-centeredness can help you come out of this.  The reality is that other people aren’t as focused on you as you think.

    Fear of harm

    Self-centeredness could have told you that the world was out to get you so in order to protect yourself you HAD to be perfect. There could never be an excuse for anyone to mock and ridicule you or put you to shame.  Letting go of this is another important part of moving forward.

    Letting go of fear

    Ultimately, fear caused debilitating emotions to overwhelm you and you sought out substances as a way to numb yourself.  Fear is powerful; it’s a great offender that can take over entirely by keeping you from living your life.  When you’re n addict and/or alcoholic, you cannot afford to be living in fear around the clock.  Now if you are not carefully keeping yourself in check in your recovery program, you put yourself at risk of being susceptible to slipping back to a life covered up in substances where you turn off your emotions and hide from the world. 

    The reality is that you don’t have to go on living like this anymore because you can face the truth and come outside of your own self-centeredness.  Fear is a negative driving force that can keep you as an alcoholic and/or addict sick in your disease but when you strive toward continuing this newfound life in recovery, you move forward with the promises of freedom and joy.  When it comes down to it, you don’t have to let fear overwhelm you and take control over your life.  You can instead focus on the matter when you bring it to surface and that way you won’t suffer the consequences of letting it take you down.

     

  • Ways to Live Happy, Joyous, and Free in Sobriety

    Whether you’ve been in recovery for an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs for a short period of time or several decades, sobriety may seem as though it’s beginning to get monotonous.  You can change your attitude by reigniting the fire when you learn about new ways to live happy, joyous, and free.

    Ways to Live Happy, Joyous, and Free

    You may have already tried these ways to live happy in sobriety, but revisiting some of the techniques or implementing additional changes to the routines can prove effective in aiding to a more meaningful life.

    Exercise

    Exercising doesn’t just promote your physical health, but it’s also been proven that exercise can benefit you by releasing chemicals in the brain and produce endorphins that make you happy.  This can contribute to a better overall state of mental and emotional well-being.

    Stop holding grudges

    If you had to choose between being happy or right, then wouldn’t you want to live happy?  Holding a grudge against other people means you are keeping resentments and burying anger inside of you.  This can end up hurting you because you’re robbing yourself of joy.  Stop wasting time and burning up energy foolishly by staying angry.  Learn to let go through moving forward with your own life.  You can do this by understanding that because everybody is different, not everyone will act the same way.  Try to see each situation from a separate perspective.

    Experience nature and outdoors

    Listen to the birds chirp.  Look at the sky.  Go hiking in the mountains.  Watch the sun set.  These simple actions all bring you back down to reality to experience true peace and joy.  It can pull you away from all the hectic technology of today’s time and show you how simple life can be.  True freedom can be exposed to you as you watch simplicity at its finest.

    Invest time in reading books

    Odds are that you didn’t have your face in between pages while you were hooked on substances, but now that you’re clean and sober you have the time to invest in some reading.  You can discover a new method of getting outside of this world while still promoting your sobriety by indulging in a fictitious book or you can choose to enhance your knowledge by picking up educational literature.

    Set goals for yourself

    When actively drinking and/or abusing drugs, it’s not unlikely you set the bar low for yourself, but now you have the ability to change that.  You may have already come up with several goals to implement in your life.  However, have you written them down?  Thinking of a goal and putting it down on paper are completely different.  When you commit to writing down a goal, it becomes real and then you know you have a mission you are striving toward. 

    With these suggestions for ways to live happy, joyous, and free, you are bound to reignite the fire in your belly during your sobriety.  You won’t have to fret over your recovery causing your life to become dull.  Life is too short and precious to get wrapped up in any mundane routine anyway, so you want to be sure you are making the most of it!  Remember, you didn’t get sober to be unhappy but instead live your life to the fullest while being present and aware of the moments as they happen.

    Are you unable to enjoy your life because you’re trapped in the cycle of addiction to alcohol and/or drugs?  Contact The Watershed for help now because you don’t have to stay stuck in addiction.  You can be living happy, joyous, and free, so call today!