When someone has just completed residential treatment for alcoholism, they leave knowing the quality of their life depends on them maintaining the recovery they worked so hard to establish. That means doing everything possible to stay away from alcohol and drinking situations.
Temptations and triggers are the enemies of someone in recovery. Most people in recovery can ill afford to allow themselves to be exposed to alcohol regularly. At some point, in a moment of weakness, the unthinkable becomes an increasing possibility, and that’s not good for anyone.
Of course, avoiding alcohol could create socializing issues for someone whose friends and family don’t have personal issues with alcohol. If said family and friends are aware their loved one has a drinking problem, they might well choose to take part in more activities that don’t include alcohol. They might also decide to exclude their recovering loved one from certain activities and not inconvenience themselves.
Is either of these options fair? If you are in recovery, you need to understand that you are responsible for your sobriety. Family and friends might be there to help you along the way, but ultimately, the responsibility falls squarely on your shoulders.
We can assure you temptation is going to come calling. We can assure you that eventually, you’ll have to deal with at least one of your triggers. When these things happen, you will hopefully remember the coping and life skills you learned during treatment. Hopefully, that will be enough to keep you from relapsing.
Right off the bat, you need to think of things you can do alone and with others that don’t include drinking. After months and years of heavy drinking, that might seem like a daunting task. Just the same, you need to do this because your life depends on it.
The following sections will address things you can do to resocialize yourself as a person in recovery.
What Are Some Social Outings That Don’t Involve Alcohol for When You’re in Recovery?
Keeping in mind alcoholism is a disease, it’s something that’s going to live inside of you for the rest of your life. That doesn’t mean you need to live in fear or barricade yourself in the house. You are in recovery. You have done the hard work. Your reward should be having the opportunity to live a normal, enjoyable life without alcohol.
Since drinking is a normal part of life for a lot of adults, many adult social activities do include some level of drinking. If you don’t want to tempt yourself, you need to think of social outings you can participate in without exposing yourself to booze. Read the following suggestions.
Participate in Rehab Facility Alumni Programs
When you walked away from rehab, you likely did so thinking you wanted to avoid anything to do with the rehab in the future. If so, you might want to rethink your position.
No one understands your plight any better than the treatment professionals that helped you get through treatment. They also understand the challenges you are going to face trying to enjoy life while avoiding alcohol. That’s why so many top treatment organizations offer alumni programs.
Alumni programs seek to bring people together in fellowship. They include social gatherings, field trips, and group therapy sessions where everyone can lean on one another for support. Most importantly, all of these social alumni programs are alcohol-free.
12 Step Meetings
A lot of people maintain a stereotype of 12 step meetings (AA and NA) as being a place where recovering addicts go to speak of their woes. 12 step meetings are social gatherings where fellowship and friendship are heavily promoted. There are a lot of meaningful friendships and social activities that can come out of the mutual endeavor to stay clean.
Organize Your Own Activities
Nothing is preventing you from organizing and sponsoring social events and stating said events are intended to be alcohol-free. The friends who know your plight and love you will gladly show up and participate. Anyone uncomfortable socializing without a drink in their hand is better suited for another party or event.
While in the throes of your addiction, you need to concentrate on getting help. Your social life after rehab is a topic for another day. Today, we want the opportunity to tell you about our rehabs and the addiction treatment services we offer. If and when you are ready to wrestle your life back from alcoholism, we want you to give us a call at 844-639-8371.