How To Maintain Sobriety Long Term

Withdrawing from substances, such as drugs and alcohol, is a realistic milestone. Getting clean is possible by detoxing, completing appropriate treatment and committing to change.

Yet to continue on a sober journey, focus, dedication, and effort must endure. Sober intentions, a clean environment, and new relationships must be formed to maintain such milestones. Ultimately, the ongoing effort is essential to reduce the risks of relapse.

If you’re hoping to remain clean, benefitting from sobriety will be a strong possibility by maintaining a sustainable schedule, mindset, and lifestyle. Here are some more tips on maintaining sobriety long term, along with the benefits that you can experience by doing so.

At Action Rehab, we’re here to help you take proactive and safe action to reach and thrive off sobriety and its milestones. Get clean for today, go sober for Stoptober and maintain your new lifestyle for the future.

What is sobriety?

Sobriety is defined as the ability to remain clean from alcohol. It reflects the recovery journey of withdrawal and rehabilitation. It also concentrates on the long-term potential of avoiding future alcohol influences and maintaining a controlled and balanced lifestyle.

This far, you may have withdrawn from and overcome the physical grasp of alcohol. You may have rebuilt on psychological and emotional levels. Yet moving forward, to fully recover, you’ll need to maintain a sober lifestyle and prevent relapse.

Reasonably, relapse risks are high through initial recovery. Remaining sober can be challenging whilst adjusting to an alcohol-free life. Yet, with sobriety milestones to reach for, there are some steps that you can take to continue on the road to recovery.

Here’s how to maintain sobriety long term, helping to prolong your recovery efforts.

How to maintain sobriety long term

Know your personal triggers

Your personal triggers will be the initial cause of consumption. Triggers can be anything from high-stress levels and influential environments to pre-existing health problems.

It’s crucial to know your personal triggers, as awareness can help you prevent future relapse. Understanding will help you spot any high-risk situations or symptoms, to act on and to protect sobriety.

Be aware of relapse warning signs.

A relapse can display through emotional, mental, and physical signs. They range from thoughts of consumption, justification of consumption and actual consumption. By being aware of relapse warning signs, you can be ahead of any possible risks. Paired with the knowledge of your triggers, you can develop a schedule and plan to reduce long term risks.

Develop a relapse prevention plan

If you accept professional support, relapse prevention planning will be something that’s covered. It’s an invaluable tool that helps to prevent relapse and to spot any possible signs. It’s a very important step to maintain sobriety long term by providing yourself with a protective action plan.

Find coping strategies that work for you.

Whilst relapse risks can be planned for; they cannot be controlled. As alcohol is a normal, populated substance, there’s a high chance that you’ll be exposed to it throughout your recovery journey. Finding a coping strategy that works for you will be encouraged to regain control through exposure. Anything from exercise, mindfulness, journaling, and self-development can work.

Maintain a clean environment

Your environment should be free from alcohol and any possible influences. Whilst every environment cannot be controlled, those you reside in or regularly visit should remain clean. High-risk situations can then be handled to help normalise sobriety.

Look beyond old routines and habits.

Your old routines may have triggered your consumption in the first place. Enabling your habits may have aggravated your addiction symptoms. It’s essential to look beyond both, form new, healthy routines and outlooks, and break the possible return of alcohol and its influences.

Changing routines and lifestyle choices is a proactive way to maintain sobriety long term by regaining some control.

Form healthy relationships

Your relationship with yourself, with those around you and with alcohol will all impact your opportunities for long-term sobriety. Relationships can be highly influential, affecting your emotions and outlooks.

To control your emotions and to reduce the risks of relapse, forming healthy relationships is recommended. You should work on your mental health and self-awareness, aim for positive and quality relationships, and aspire to see alcohol as a negative coping strategy.

Aim for healthy living

Your lifestyle choices should be looked at when considering ‘how to maintain sobriety long term’. Unhealthy choices, such as poor diet, a lack of sleep, and isolation, can increase the risks of relapse. Instead, by practising self-care, maintaining a healthy diet, resting, and associating yourself with positive people and activities, those risks will be reduced.

With some small yet sustainable changes, you can look to lead a sober lifestyle, reflective of your wants and goals.

Accept support

Support will be available through many different outlets. Local support groups, the care of loved ones, online blogs and communities, and aftercare are all beneficial when maintaining sobriety long term.

Through October, a broader community will be taking part in Stoptober to stop alcohol intake. There are many benefits linked to it, helping raise money whilst personally saving money, improving wellbeing, and boosting mental health. Community efforts such as this can help to strengthen your personal goals and accountability for long-term recovery.

Be realistic

Long-term sobriety is a future goal that you’ll need to endure. Like any other goal, you’ll need to be realistic when considering your next steps. Setbacks are common throughout sobriety. Yet how you deal with them will affect your ability to maintain sobriety long term. Allow for a positive yet realistic outlook.

Benefits of sobriety

There are many benefits to long-term sobriety that you can look to experience. By following our guidance, you’ll increase your chances of a beneficial recovery journey.

You can expect to:

• Improve your finances by reducing or stopping all unnecessary spends
• Improve your wellbeing by withdrawing from alcohol
• Improve your mental health by focusing on positive actions
• Improve your relationships by disregarding alcohol
• Improve and prolong your life and its quality
• Improve your chances of long-term sobriety

Our help at Action Rehab

To withdraw and remain sober, we at Action Rehab can help you. We offer support throughout the initial stages of addiction recovery by helping our clients find suitable rehabilitation programmes. Contact us to find your programme, a strong start towards long-term sobriety.

For more tips on maintaining sobriety long-term, post-rehab, we’re also here to help. For more information on Go Sober for October, click here.

Sources

https://www.gosober.org.uk/about/benefits

https://www.gosober.org.uk/about/how-it-helps

Posted on Friday, October 8th, 2021 at 10:09 am in Alcoholism, Latest News.