Navigating Your First Year of Sobriety

What you have done is immense! You recognized and admitted that you were struggling with alcohol use or drugs, and you got the help you needed in a treatment program. Now, you are prepared with life skills and coping mechanisms to go headlong into your first year of sobriety. As you look ahead to maintaining sobriety, consider joining a rehab alumni program. To find the best help during your first year of being sober, contact Alina Lodge online or call us at 833.685.1700 today.

What To Expect During Your First Year of Sobriety

Being sober now indicates that you are ready to reintegrate and live a healthier and happier life, full of experiences and moments you will be clean and present for. It may even feel like your life is beginning all over again. These are exciting times, but as you work toward maintaining sobriety in the first year, you can also face unique challenges. The first year of sobriety can be a delicate and precarious time in your life, most notably because relapses do occur. Here’s what to expect and how you can be successful at maintaining sobriety during those exciting first 12 months.

Consider Transitional Housing

After completing your treatment program, consider transitional housing as a way of bridging the gap between the intense structure and supervision you experienced during treatment and the unchecked freedom of regular life back at home. A halfway home is a space where sober living is foundational, and spending time there may be appropriate for your personality and individual situation. A sober living facility can provide you with a structured living situation that is also a supportive environment. You will be with others who also have finished treatment programs for drug or alcohol use. There you will transition to mainstream society from the highly structured environment of a treatment program.

There can be many benefits of transitional housing, but the most important one is that you will be surrounded by people who, like you, are all focused on recovery and maintaining sobriety. Additionally, all the residents at a halfway home like Alina Lodge will be tasked with specific responsibilities, which will ease you back into life as you once knew it and will soon know it again while also allowing you the time needed to focus on your recovery.

Develop a Routine of Healthy Habits

One of the reasons you found success during your treatment was the highly structured nature of your days. Now that you are planning for your first year of sobriety, it is crucial to maintain that same routine, discipline, and purpose to your days. Because you may also be returning to work, school, or the roles and responsibilities of home life, keeping the momentum of your daily and weekly routines will help in maintaining your sobriety. Additionally, if you aren’t returning to a job or the classroom, you may find yourself with spare time on your hands, and keeping yourself focused on tasks throughout each day can be beneficial as boredom can lead to relapse.

There is more to recovery than stopping your substance use. Recovery is also about filling your time with healthy habits that can reaffirm your life and give you purpose. Your routine in recovery should include the healthy habits that you want to incorporate into your life going forward, which may include:

• Planning and eating nutritional meals
• Getting proper amounts of sleep
• Exercising regularly
• Meditation
• Self-care (yoga, spirituality)
• Journaling
• Starting a new, healthy hobby

Join a Rehab Alumni Program

You don’t need to recover from addiction on your own. Better said, you shouldn’t go at it alone. For many, maintaining sobriety requires a supportive, patient, caring, loving, and dependable support network. When you are in recovery, especially during your first year of sobriety, having access to help from others is invaluable.

Start by seeking out support from the other residents in your treatment program and transitional housing. These are the individuals who know best exactly what you went through and what you are going through right now. Attending support group meetings usually begins while you are still in treatment and will be important to you throughout your life.

Some people in recovery choose to go to 12-Step meetings, and treatment centers could incorporate the 12-Step tenets into their programs. Alternatively, others find success in working with a therapist to talk about hurdles, struggles, and successes experienced during their first year of sobriety.

Finally, there are rehab alumni programs full of members who will support your recovery and help you maintain sobriety, and for whom you can reciprocate and feel that sense of purpose and joy too.

Learn More at Alina Lodge

If you or someone you care about is wondering how to find success during the first year of sobriety, contact Alina Lodge using our secure online form or call us at 833.685.1700 today.