Building Healthy Habits in Recovery

 

Building healthy habits such as exercise, good eating, and maintaining a well-structured life are essential to human life. Sometimes habits can be hard to maintain or stay on top of. However, there are certain circumstances in which it is truly unsafe to stray away from having and building healthy habits. 

Sobriety changes your life completely. Some do not realize the way that they are taking on in making the choice to start over. But it is a complete and total life change. 

A New Sober Life

The drastic change that takes place in getting sober is the polar opposite of the world you were stuck in addiction. Substance use disorder (SUD) is a brain disease. Due to this, the mind experiences the fight of its life in sobriety. Now you cannot turn your feelings off. You can no longer pick and choose what you have the wherewithal to process. You have to feel it all and sit in it. 

This is why detox, inpatient, and outpatient treatment are essential to a life of recovery. Therapy, having a sponsor, and a community of individuals who you can relate helps you adapt to your new normal. However, recovery is not all about therapy. The resources you receive and the things you do within the treatment center are just a piece of life in sobriety. 

The Importance of Having Sponsors and a Support System in Building Healthy Habits for Your Recovery

You will need a strong support system prior to even going into treatment. Family and friends who can help encourage and uplift you to make the right decision in seeking sobriety are essential. However, you will need that much more on the other side of treatment. They will need to know and learn your triggers along with you. This helps create boundaries and measures of safety, especially in the early days of your sobriety. 

Along with having a support system when it comes to family and friends, you will also need someone within the sober world who can be your direct support person as well. Having a sponsor is crucial to a successful recovery.

Your sponsor has been where you are. They are able to help you understand this new way of life and the journey that you are beginning. They understand things that you may feel or think. Things that you do not even have to tell them or explain to them will resonate. 

Having a sponsor is almost like having a sober fairy godparent. They may come to know you better than people you’ve known all your life, and that’s okay. In a lot of ways, they are your lifeline and can guide you through the hardest times of your sobriety. 

Building Healthy Habits in Recovery: Sober Relationships and Connections

Outside of having a sponsor, you will need to build other sober relationships and connect with others. It is easy to feel completely alone or is if you’re on an island when you first come out of treatment. Your support system of family and friends want to understand, but they can only sympathize. They cannot relate to exactly what you were feeling because they’ve never been in those shoes.

Giving yourself permission to take space from your normal friend group and build new sober friendships is very important. You need friends who you do not have to explain what it feels like to be sober too. Friends that you can be fluid within your sobriety are necessary. 

Even in a romantic relationship, some may find it easier to, when you are ready, get to know someone who shares your experiences. Even if they are not someone who has experienced addiction but they have just chosen to live a sober lifestyle. This may be an easier approach to dating as you will not have to explain why you don’t drink or use substances.

Having sober relationships opens the door to help you better navigate sobriety within and outside of the walls of treatment. With new sober friends, you will find that together, you will begin building healthy habits. 

You may start a yoga class for meditation together. You can encourage each other to eat better and even establish a workout schedule or crew. Maybe you have friends who you will go to meetings with, and you make it a point to meet and make new sober connections. 

You can collectively work to strengthen the community and help those that are babies in sobriety break into their journey with ease. Maybe do sober study sessions together and even make a spiritual connection and attend church with these new friends. The relationships that you make in sobriety with other sober people are what will carry you through the trenches of this hard life change. 

 

Lantana Recovery’s Healthy Habits Program

Lantana Recovery’s Healthy Habits Program teaches clients how building healthy habits can sustain their sobriety. We provide education and practice of healthy eating and the importance of diet in sobriety. We also teach how exercise is crucial for a healthy mind, body, and soul. There are various benefits of physical movement in recovery. This program helps to foster these skills and help clients maintain sobriety even outside the treatment space. 

Recovery resources and programs are like accountability measures that you never knew how much you needed. You realize it most in moments where you’re in desperate need of support, but past friends you called for help are not an option. 

You need a lifeline resource and someone who will understand. Our Healthy Habits Program opens the door to a world of resources and relationships that can help you navigate your new life in recovery. 

After you walk out the doors of treatment, you enter an entirely different world. Sure, you still have access to those resources, but your new sober life requires much more. Recovery requires building healthy habits that you can use outside of treatment that help support your recovery. Everything is new in a sober world. You are new when you get sober. Your days and nights have a different feel to them. Your social life changes completely as it should for the maintenance of your recovery. Healthy habits such as a balanced diet, exercise, and making sober connections are crucial to your recovery. For more information on starting healthy habits, call Lantana Recovery at (866) 997-2870.

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