The common phrase of “new playmates and new playgrounds” promotes discovering different people to hang with and different places to frequent in sobriety. To get good quality recovery, you must change everything about your life where addiction played a part. Early sobriety can leave you susceptible to being influenced by the peers that surround you. Old flings, using buddies, dealers, or old friends that you hang out with regularly can be a bad influence in a time that is important to learn a new healthy lifestyle. To focus on early recovery, leaving behind old friends and your neighborhood for a significant amount of time can make a big difference in the quality of your recovery.
Try sober living
Sober living is a great way to cohabit with people that may have similar triggers and similar issues. Staying in a sober house lets you become part of a group that is experiencing the same challenges with the same rules. Housemates can usually identify with each other to form common unity.
Practice what to say
Be prepared when someone from your old life contacts you. Recovery unfortunately does not make bad influences just go away. You will have to be ready when they contact you by practicing what to say, which is what treatment, therapy, and an ongoing personal program of recovery will prepare you for. Setting boundaries is okay to protect your sobriety. Role playing in therapy can help you engage with the possibility that someone may try to tempt you back into the life you are trying to escape from.
Put Yourself Out There
Finding new friends can seem impossible to you because that means that you may have to approach people that you have never met before and start conversations. You will be elated by the results you get from putting yourself out there.
Build a Sober Tribe
Sobriety may be viewed as boring or uncool to some. To most people in recovery, it is a blast to be sober! Finding friends that are sober can make a big difference in your recovery. You tend to be like the people you surround yourself daily. Being around like-minded people in recovery can be a game changer to halt relapse.
Accept recovery support
There is recovery support that is available for the taking. 12-Step programs have great tools to help you embrace sobriety, but you have to first accept the support that is offered before you it will work for you. Try going to meetings and working with a sponsor to open your perspective to new places and new people.
Serenity Oaks Wellness Center provides a 5 week long rehab program to men and women seeking to make their lives more beautiful through recovery. Let treatment at Serenity Oaks be the beginning of your beautiful life of recovery. Start today by calling us for information: 844-720-6847
