4 Tips for Staying Sober After Rehab

If you’ve made use of one of the great rehab centers in Tennessee and kicked your addiction, congratulations. Attending and completing a great alcohol rehabilitation program is a wonderful first step on the road to living sober. 

However, as any person who’s currently living sober will tell you, staying sober is its own battle. After rehab, it’s important that you take accountability, and prevent yourself from sliding back into old mistakes. You’ll no longer have as many people helping you out, so you need as many sobriety tips as you can get. 

If you’re wondering how to stay sober, you’ve found the right article. Keep reading, and we’ll walk you through a few sober living tips. 

1. Take on New Interests

There’s an old saying that goes “the devil finds work for idle hands”. This has proven to be true — boredom is one of the many dangerous roads to addiction. Without the time spent feeding your addiction, you have to find a way to fill up your downtime, so you don’t slide back into addiction.

Take up some pursuit that fills your body, your mind, or your soul. If you’re more sports-inclined, you may find a lot of satisfaction and joy in joining an adult sports league. You can also get into running, something healthy that many people become extremely involved in. 

If you’re more intellectually inclined, perhaps you can take this time to read more books. There are many books out there that can help anyone understand science, philosophy, sociology, anthropology — you name it. Maybe you can even begin work on a research project, and try to get it published. 

To feed your soul, consider taking up art. Many people abandon pursuits like acting, music, and writing when they’re young. However, the 21st century has made it so that anyone can pursue these paths with little consequence. 

If you’re musically inclined, create some music. It doesn’t take that much to put it online these days! Acting classes are cheap, as are submission fees to literary magazines. 

2. Join a Support Group

Support systems are extremely important once you leave one of the great treatment centers in Tennessee. A support system can be anything as official as Alcoholics Anonymous, or anything as homespun as a group of sober living friends. 

Alcoholics Anonymous (and Narcotics Anonymous) are extremely important to many people since there is extremely little hierarchy. In the world of these anonymous support groups, everyone helps everyone get through it; they all know how hard recovering from addiction is.

Small support groups work wonders too. Many people go down the dark ladder of addiction because they “fell in with the wrong crowd”. Drinking and drugs are so engrained in youth and nightlife culture that it can feel hard to resist temptations.

By finding a sober living friend group, you find other ways to have a lot of fun without getting drunk/high. There are many board games you can play, movies you can watch, YouTube videos you can analyze, books you can talk about, different types of coffee you can drink, and restaurants you can attend. 

A great in-between option is to become active on one of the many online addiction/recovery forums. Places like Reddit allow you to connect and share ideas with people all around the world. You very well may find perspectives on there that you never would have in everyday life. 

3. Encourage Someone Else to Go to a Alcohol Rehabilitation Center  

Bill W., the man largely credited for creating the wonderful and supportive culture that is Alcoholics Anonymous, created it because he realized that the key to maintaining his sobriety was to help other people become sober.

When you’re helping someone else recover from their addiction, you’re experiencing firsthand how hard addiction can be. You’ll remember how bad you felt when you found yourself in that situation, and will better motivate yourself to not go back there again. 

At the end of the day, there are no experts when it comes to sobriety. That’s why the slogan of AA is “one day at a time”. By introducing what you know to someone you care about, you’re reinforcing the messages for yourself. 

When you encourage someone you know to go to a rehab facility, you’re giving someone else the tools to help you. They’ll be able to support you in your moments of weakness, by gaining the information they’ll learn from rehab. 

In addition to this, helping out a loved one will make you feel better. When you’re depressed and anxious worrying about a friend, you’re far more likely to backslide and give in to the voice that tells you to feed your addiction. 

4. Count Your Money

At the end of the day, drugs and alcohol cost money. Financial troubles can lead to very high levels of stress and anxiety, which can, in turn, lead to more drinking. It’s a vicious cycle. 

However, now that you’ve kicked your addiction, you’re going to have a significant amount of extra cash. Count the money up, and celebrate the fact that you’ve made a wise financial decision. 

Stay Sober After the Rehab Ends

After you exit alcohol rehabilitation, your life is yours to lead once more. However, this is only true if you’re able to maintain your sobriety.

Take on some new interests that will truly engage you, join any sort of support group that suits you, encourage other friends to go to rehab, and count up all of the money that you saved, and you’ll be enjoying your sober life worry-free in no time.

For more information, schedule a virtual tour with us today.