4 Ways to Stay Motivated During Addiction Recovery
4 Ways to Stay Motivated During Addiction Recovery
When it comes to addiction recovery, it's vital to stay motivated toward your goals. Here are a few ways you can keep yourself motivated every day.
Keyword(s): Addiction Recovery
Committing to addiction recovery is one of the most important steps you can take in building a better life for yourself. However, the journey is long and fraught with pitfalls. 85% of people who seek addiction treatment will experience a relapse within their first year.
As difficult as the process can be, staying motivated will be crucial to your success. To help you meet your recovery goals, here are a few ways you can inspire yourself to continue your journey.
1. Remember Why You Started Addiction Recovery
Most people don't wake up one day and decide to get sober out of the blue. It's much more the norm that some inciting incident prompted them to make that change.
Those circumstances are different for everyone. Reflecting on what inspired you to make a change in your life can renew your motivation and help you continue recovery.
2. Create Structure in Your Life
Recovery requires a level of stability in your life. Chaos and uncertainty are antithetical to your long-term success.
Unfortunately, circumstances like an unsupportive living situation can't be easily rectified overnight. And the modest progress you make each day may not be enough to motivate you to keep going.
In these situations, it's helpful to identify small changes that you can make. These can be anything from working toward a healthier lifestyle or cultivating a daily routine. Each small change you make can help you stay motivated to make bigger changes while building a more structured lifestyle.
3. Connect With Your Support Network
They say that "no man is an island", and that's particularly true when you're going through drug or alcohol recovery. Friends and family will be a huge part of your support network, of course. But often the people best able to help you are the ones who know first-hand the struggles you're living with.
Fortunately, there are many modern solutions for finding support. Besides traditional in-person meetings, there are online alternatives and social communities that you can join.
Sponsorship is an especially important component. Finding the right sponsor will play a huge role in meeting your recovery goals. But once you have a sponsor, maintaining that relationship can help serve as an impetus to stay sober.
4. Keep a Journal of Your Journey
When you focus all of your attention on your daily life it can be easy to lose track of the bigger picture, including how far you've come relative to where you started.
That's why journaling is one of the best tools in your recovery kit. If you find yourself struggling, your journals give you a chance to look back on other hurdles you had to clear. Reminding yourself of challenges you've overcome in the past can give you the strength and motivation to deal with the obstacles you're facing in the present.
Take Pride in Your Milestones
Your addiction recovery journey will challenge you. And along the way, it can be difficult to stay motivated. Celebrating recovery milestones is one of the best things you can do to put your progress in perspective.
That's why AA tokens and recovery chips are popular mementos. They serve as reminders of how far you've come and can help keep you motivated to continue. To see some examples of these keepsakes, check out our selection of AA chips, medallions, and tokens.