Is There Room For You in a Sober Recovery Lifestyle?
The key to experiencing sober recovery is to find passion and purpose after you quit drinking. There is a bit more to it than that, of course, but this is part of the bottom line for long term success. If you do not have passion and purpose in your life as you embrace sobriety, then you are walking on thin ice and are in constant danger of relapse.
Anyone can stop drinking, and most of us do so all the time. The key is in staying stopped, and then building a meaningful life for ourselves.
Drunks love to drink. Why? Because it fills them with passion. Drinking brings them to life. It has meaning for them. It is almost like a spiritual journey of sorts.
Of course we all know that this is a dead end, and that the alcoholic will not find true meaning in this over the long run. That is what motivates the alcoholic to change, eventually. It stops being fun. They lose the passion they once had for being drunk. It ceases to be an adventure.
photo credit: Mel Sharlene
If the alcoholic has endured enough pain at this point, then they will seek change in their life. If they can successfully moderate their drinking, then that is just dandy and they were probably not a true alcoholic to begin with. On the other hand, if they cannot stop on their own, then they need to ask for help and they need to start their new life with a baseline of abstinence and sobriety.
Again, anyone can get to this point. Any drunk can check into alcohol rehab and get dried out for a week or two. The key is in staying stopped in the long run. And that is the point of recovery, and the point of any program. To teach the alcoholic how to live a sober life in recovery.
Regardless of which program you follow (12 steps of AA, for example), you still have to take action and create this new life. It will not create itself for you out of thin air. You have to infuse it yourself with meaning, and find your own passion, and start living with real purpose. You can do these things in a number of different ways. For example, you might find a unique way of reaching out to other addicts in recovery, and really connect with them and help them. This could become a purpose for someone–a big part of what keeps them clean and sober.
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