Learning to respect yourself and feel good about your decisions builds on your self-confidence and self-worth. Many individuals find themselves feeling inadequate or unimportant after completing addiction recovery treatment. It is essential to your continued treatment to find ways to honor your decisions and pursue activities that can help you maintain your commitment. Life after treatment requires intrinsic motivation, so when you feel inadequate or unimportant, you can use resources and tools to empower yourself
You have likely learned many things in treatment and are now trying to get your bearings on life outside your treatment center. One of the things you probably learned in treatment was the importance of self-care. This is a way to fulfill and maintain your commitment to abstinence. Self-care is more than face masks, bubble baths, and alone time. It is an important way to check in with yourself and ensure that you are doing what you need to do to keep up your sobriety.
When you ignore yourself and let others make decisions for you, ultimately, you allow your lifestyle to be influenced by others. The addiction recovery lifestyle is like a relationship. You go into the relationship willing to pursue a healthy, happy lifestyle, but it takes work and continual maintenance.
Self-care and continued treatment include the dedication to honor yourself. You deserve to take care of your personal health while fulfilling your interests and continuing recovery practices, even long after you've graduated from your treatment program.
Sometimes, people in aftercare feel disconnected from what is going on around them, whether because they've been away for treatment for a while or because their normal routines of substance use are suddenly gone without anything to fill that space. If these feelings arise, use the relational skills you've learned in treatment to push negative feelings aside and trust that things will feel more familiar and comfortable the more you engage.
No one ever said that a healthy lifestyle would be an easy path to follow, but is a path that leads in a worthy direction. Don't let frustrations or feelings of limitations stop you from pursuing your goals for sobriety. Be generous and patient with yourself, understanding that the process takes time, but will get easier with practice.
It's easy to feel limited when you come out of treatment, as you might only think of all the “don'ts” without focusing on the “dos." This can feel limiting and make you wonder how to fill your time or how to pursue relationships. However, living a life free of substance use is living a life truly free. When you rid yourself of a lifestyle that brought harm to you and those around you, you can experience life most authentically. Don't dwell on past mistakes; instead, focus on how you're going to be better from now on, and let that lead you to new paths.
Being self-generous and trusting yourself allows you to learn how to maintain your commitment and honor the right decisions. You have made a considerable effort to better yourself by eliminating the toxins that held you down and took more than it gave you. Take full advantage of the connection with yourself and others and make the differences in personal value and self-worth.
Getting sober is hard work, and staying sober requires constant vigilance, but it gets easier. You've made so many good choices to get to this point; from recognizing you need help, to seeking that help, to going through with treatment, to committing to staying sober, a lot has gone into getting you where you are today. Honor those good choices by continuing to make good choices and not squandering the efforts or progress you've made.
When you honor yourself, you can maintain continued recovery. Before trying different activities to sustain commitment, ask yourself what the most important thing is to you. Once you know what’s important to you, you can fulfill your desires by taking small steps daily.
Ways to honor your choices in your continued treatment include:
When you remember how far you've come, you can see that the road ahead will be easier, but still requires work. Use these guiding principles to create your goals and take small steps every day to fulfill them.
At NorthStar Transitions, we want you to fulfill your needs and desires after leaving treatment. We provide unique ways to help you find the resources and tools you deserve to honor yourself in long-term recovery. If you struggle with life outside of treatment and need help reaffirming your values and priorities, we are here for you. We can provide you with resources to attack your goals with confidence and clarity. Your choices after treatment may not always be the easiest, but making the right decisions and honoring yourself can make all the difference. Recovery is not finished once you leave the treatment center, so we are here to provide you with ways to honor your good choices by keeping on the right path. For more information on our substance addiction recovery programs or our resources for alumni of our facility, reach out to us at (303) 558-6400 and get the guidance you need.
