Sobriety Guru

Achieving Long Term Sobriety

2009-03-23T11:16:00.003-04:00

The quest for long term sobriety starts with day 1 of quitting drinking. In the beginning, you will need to focus a lot of effort on staying sober and clawing your way through each and every day without taking a drink. This will require a lot of intense effort and action right up front. You won't stay sober by sitting on the couch all day long and wishing it were so.

No, you have to take action.

Now some of us will go to AA meetings and others will find a different path to make it through early recovery, but at some point all of us will have to transition into long term sobriety. The way we get there is going to vary a lot from person to person, but the basic principles of this way of life are going to be fairly consistent from one person to the next.

Look for these things on your journey to long term sobriety:

1) Passionate living - you have to be excited about living life sober or you will return to drinking some day.

2) Purpose - you need purpose in order to stay focused. For many, this will center on helping other recovering alcoholics in some way.

3) Creation - you need to actively create this new life for yourself in order to keep moving forward. Continuous growth is the key to overcoming complacency.

Women for Sobriety

2009-03-05T12:51:00.003-05:00

I looked into this organization and I am really impressed. Apparently this organization was started by a women with the intention of helping female alcoholics to recover. She put together a heck of a program that I think was really ahead of it's time.

Women for sobriety advocates the use of affirmations, which is a bit controversial in my opinion. A lot of people don't necessarily believe that these can have such a large impact, but other people swear by them. It is sort of like you either love it or hate it kind of an issue. But even if you do not believe in the power of affirmations this program has a lot to offer.

A big part of the Women for Sobriety program assumes that you drank to mask emotional pain. Some of us probably did not drink for that reason but many of us did. If you did, then the program is designed to teach you how to absolve yourself of guilt and start dealing with that emotional pain in a new way. This is mostly done through affirmations but they also seem to advocate networking with others in their program.

There are some parallels with Alcoholics Anonymous but this seems to get down more to the core of why people drank on an emotional level and attempts to fix how we process and deal with those feelings. Women for sobriety seems to do a really good job at addressing the emotional side of our addiction, perhaps even more so than AA does.

Regardless of your gender I think is worth at least learning about their program and seeing if any of it applies to your life an to your recovery. They have some solid concepts that can really help people to become more independent in their recovery. Check them out!

The Keys to Early Sobriety

2009-03-04T08:34:00.004-05:00

There are a few secrets to early sobriety that are really like giant levers. You can use these levers to create a better chance of success in your recovery.

1) Networking and support - examples of this would be like networking with others at an AA meeting. We need help in order to quit drinking so if you reach out to others then your chances of staying sober will increase.

2) Structure - in early sobriety we generally lack structure in our lives, because we are coming from a place of disarray when we were still drinking heavily. If we can gain structure in our new life it can really help our chances for sobriety.

3) Treatment - it is not required to attend treatment in order to get sober but for many people this is an important part of their journey. Some would never make it at all if it were not for treatment so this can be an important option to consider.

4) Holistic growth - as you complete your first stage of early recovery then it is time to start pushing yourself to grow in new directions. This is the push for holistic growth and this is what will ultimately carry you into long term sobriety. Personal growth is the transition that is needed for you to stay sober in the long run.

So those are the keys to early sobriety and if you focus on them and leverage them to the best of your ability then you should be able to stay sober. This is easy to say but hard to do. For example, in order to really leverage all of these concepts in my life, I chose to live in a long term treatment center for a period of almost 2 years! That sounds like a big commitment but notice how it incorporated all 4 of these keys into my recovery.

Protecting Your Sobriety

2009-03-03T12:28:00.003-05:00

If you want to stay sober over the long haul then there are certain things you need to do in order to protect your sobriety. Here are my top recommendations for doing so:

1) Fight complacency - by pushing yourself to keep growing in new ways. This is so important and most people don't even realize that complacency is what causes relapse. Most people think that relapse is caused when someone "stops going to meetings" or something similar. This is very misleading because in all actuality they person got complacent, and their lack of meeting attendance was merely a symptom of that complacency. In fact meetings have nothing to do with it and what really causes people to relapse is when they stop growing.

2) Help other alcoholics - nothing can be more beneficial in long term sobriety. If you want to insure yourself against the possibility of relapse then the best thing you can do is to reach out and help a struggling alcoholic. Nothing is more powerful for keeping you sober. Now if you really want to insure this protection, find ways to make a habit out of doing so. Sponsorship, chairing AA meetings, or working directly with newcomers are all good ways of doing this.

3) Focus on holistic health - this is important to your long term sobriety because without it, you can fall victim to any number of problems and some of them can lead back to drinking. I have seen people get sick and end up relapsing as an indirect result of being sick for so long. I have also seen people get sick and end up taking some medications that eventually led them back to the bottle.

But this goes beyond physical sicknesses as well. You should also strive for good health in all areas of your life, such as with emotional balance and mental health.

Emotional Sobriety

2009-03-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

What is emotional sobriety?

It is your emotional balance in recovery. When it is in a state of disarray you will be restless, irritable, and discontent. This is the state of being that precedes a physical relapse. Obviously we want to avoid that.

How can we achieve balance in this area of our life? There are a couple of things you can do to help maintain your emotional sobriety:

1) Meditate daily - Most people pay lip service to the idea of meditation but very few actually close their eyes for 10 minutes each day and get really quiet with some purposeful meditating. This is really hard to do if you are not in the habit of doing it but the payoff can be tremendous. This can help "center" you and quiet down the incessant chatter in your mind. If you are emotionally out of whack then you really must consider trying this.

2) Helping others - If you want to know how to solve all your problems, try helping other recovering alcoholics for a while. This works wonders and can help you put your own emotional state into perspective as well. When we reach out and help struggling alcoholics, we realize just how good we've got it in our own life.

3) Personal growth - When you set goals for yourself and start growing on a personal level, this has the effect of smoothing out your emotional life. The reason it does this is due to the incredible boost in self esteem that you get from setting and achieving your goals. Most will underestimate this as being not relevant to emotional sobriety but in fact it can be the biggest key to your success.

Purposefully create a new life for yourself and your emotional balance will take care of itself.

Finding Your Path to Sobriety

2009-03-02T10:01:00.000-05:00

It took me at least 10 years of drinking and drugging before I found my path to sobriety. I resisted this path for so long because I was stubborn and because I was afraid.

I was terrified of what life would be like sober. I did not want to explore the idea. It frightened me. I had been wearing a mask and medicating my feelings with alcohol for so long that the thought of sobriety truly scared me.

But eventually I surrendered to the idea of sobriety. Some people say that they surrendered to the disease of alcoholism but I think for me it was a surrender to this crushing fear of a sober life. I gave up struggling against it and decided to let it unfold around me. I gave in to the fear and decided that I was more afraid to keep drinking and to die. This was my path to the decision to stop drinking. I don't know exactly how I overcame this fear but it was a letting go of sorts. I simply let the fear slide somehow. It no longer mattered to me and I was willing to face the dismal prospect (so I thought!) of a life without drinking.

For me, I had to ask for help in order to get sober. I was a complete mess and I was scared and I did not really believe that the sober life was possible for me. So I had to ask for help. This was hard to do but luckily the right people guided me into treatment. I'm grateful that I went to treatment as it was instrumental in my early recovery. Without it I would still be drinking.

I personally stayed in treatment for almost 2 years. I went from detox, to a residential program, to a long term facility. This proved to be an excellent decision for me. I had tried treatment in the past but had always failed after a short stay. Living in long term treatment gave me the stability and the accountability that I needed to get a good start on my recovery.

I wish long term treatment were the answer for everyone but I'm afraid that it is not. While living there, I watched about 30 other alcoholics struggle and eventually relapse. Maybe 3 or 4 guys out of a few dozen stayed sober for a year. Only one of them that I know other than myself of has stayed clean and sober to this day. So long term treatment is not a magic bullet, though it did work for me.

I think what is most important to realize is that everyone's path is different. There are a million and one ways to get sober. If something doesn't work for you then try something else. It is amazing how many people ignore this advice. For example, those who continuously relapse in the 12 step fellowship do not realize that they need a new strategy.

They always define insanity as doing something over and over and expecting different results. If this applies to your attempts to get sober then it is time to try something new. Maybe you've been in a 12 step program for years but have not been able to string together any meaningful clean time. If that is the case why not try therapy, or counseling, or some other approach?

There are lots of ways to get sober and there are many people who can help you but ultimately you have to find your own path. How could this not be true? You are walking through life as an individual and making your own decisions. The path you are on was chosen by you. Take ownership of your path and your recovery. It is only through doing so that you can find your true path to sobriety.