3 Ways to Lay a Solid Foundation for Long Term Sobriety

Here are 3 ways to lay a solid foundation for long term sobriety:

1) Long term treatment

My number one recommendation. Long term treatment saved my life, and it could save yours, too. This is the option to use when everything else has failed. The level of support you receive while living in a long term treatment center is unparalleled. Where else can you get continuous support from a relatively safe environment that is solely focused on recovery?

Living in long term treatment also sets your life up for after you eventually leave and get out on your own. The connections, relationships, and practices that you establish while living there will carry forward and last you for the rest of your life (potentially).

In short, long term treatment facilitates the kinds of changes that tend to last for a very long time. It is a powerful resource for sobriety.

2) Total immersion in recovery network

The idea here is to totally immerse yourself in recovery, eliminating any loose ties with bad influences from your past (people you used or drank with). One way to do this is through heavy AA or NA meeting attendance. If you immerse yourself into the program, and build up a solid network of friends and associates from the meetings, then you’ll have a powerful weapon in the fight against relapse.

Attending the same meetings, day in and day out, for long periods of time can help build these associations. If you connect with some of the people, then you could build friendships in recovery that last for the rest of your life. But the key is that you have to start out strong and completely immerse yourself (hence the suggestion of 90 meeting in 90 days).

3) Make a habit of helping other addicts

This is more powerful than most people realize. If you can make a solid habit of helping other addicts and alcoholics on a regular basis, it will be very hard for you to relapse. That’s because we help ourselves more than we realize when we help other addicts to recover.

One example of this in my recovery came from a suggestion from my sponsor. He encouraged me to make a commitment to chair an NA meeting in a treatment facility each week. It was only a one hour commitment, but it made a world of difference to me at the time. And today I have become even more involved with helping addicts on a regular basis.

Helping our fellow addicts and alcoholics is relapse prevention in its purest form. Find a way to help on a regular basis, and it will strengthen your recovery immeasurably.

What about you….what has helped you lay a solid foundation for your recovery?

3 Comments so far

Hi Patrick,
Great article and suggestions. I found that I also had to become willing to listen to what others had to say, and get in a mind set of being teachable.
~Cheryl
life coach for recovering alcoholics

Hi there Cheryl

Tell us more about life coaching for recovery….sounds interesting and might be useful to the readers here!

Hi Patrick,
Thank’s so much for your generosity in allowing me to share with your readers information on recovery coaching.
I work with a client either by phone or in person, in any stage of their recovery and help support them in making change. The “change” I speak about is the change that the client recognizes, and decides that they would like to work on. This change often differs widely from one client to another. It can be an issue, that they perhaps have been stumbling on for years, or maybe it is something that comes up for them much more recently. Sometimes it shows up in the work environment, or in a relationship, or simply as a nagging, bothersome thing that they would simply like to resolve or change in some way.
Unlike a therapist who may diagnose a person with a mental illness, or work with them on a specific trauma they experienced in the past, I only work in the present day…what is coming up NOW that is causing my client pain or to be uncomfortable. The role of a coach is also different from a sponsor, as a sponsor’s role is to help a person understand and the 12 steps of a program of recovery. While recovery may be a BIG part of a persons life, the coach sees recovery as only a part of the bigger picture in a persons life…and is there to help a client balance all areas of their life within the framework of recovery, yet much bigger than simply the recovery itself.
Like AA and Smart recovery, I also agree that a person’s thinking is what often creates and sustains problamatic issues for a person, therefore much of the work we do is to bring more awareness to thoughts and beliefs my clients bring to the coaching.
For instance a thought or belief of “no one loves me”, may of served a person at one time such as became the excuse for their self destructive behaviors. Yet will not serve them now if they wish to remain sober and become a person who is loved.
When we upgrade a person’s thinking while they are in recovery, I believe we will see a change in the rate of relapse and even in the length that a relapse last. See, the relapse actually follows the thinking…not the other way around. When a person is getting ready for relapse, the thinking begins to revert back to thoughts that will support the decision to use. If you once drank because you believed you were unloved, well it is hard to drink when you know and believe you are loved…that excuse is gone. The relapse can be avoided altogether, because there is nothing there to support it.
A life coach brings to the partnership fresh new perspectives, validation, new ideas and a tool box filled with interesting and new tools for their clients!
My coaching practice addresses issues such as repetitive negative thinking,judging and criticizing yourself or others,fear of being yourself,wishing things were different ,feelings of being less than, difficult relationships, the could of/should of/ would of’s and much much more.
A life coach is not confined to any specific program of recovery, thus is able to support individual choice of recovery modalities. Most recovery coaches have their own personal experience in recovery, which is a powerful asset in working with clients who are in recovery.
Much love and light!~Cheryl~
Recovery Life Coach
Member of Recovery Coaches International

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3 Ways to Lay a Solid Foundation for Long Term Sobriety

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