Maintaining A Sober Social Life

Social events offer people a wonderful way to cut loose, have fun, and interact with others. Unfortunately, many of these events often involve, or even revolve around alcohol consumption. If you, a friend, or date are the sober ones in the crowd, your stance may potentially prove difficult to maintain. Fortunately, our drug rehab counselors have some tips up their sleeve…

Communicate!

Ask your friends for support. Communicate your commitment to maintaining your sobriety, and request they respect your decision. Though you may miss out on some wacky stories, you’ll also avoid placing yourself in an awkward and potentially hazardous situation. Bring the topic up on your own before making plans rather than letting yourself become resentful.

Fun!

Make your own plans and ask others to join in! Take the leader role, and suggest something casual and fun like a play, coffee, or a movie outing. This way, you will avoid being pestered into visiting a location where drinking is the main focus.When a get-together places an emphasis on drinking, attention is ultimately placed on what you can’t have. As such, it can be easy to become moody, withdrawn, and even angry at the party you are associating with. It’s a lose-lose situation, which can easily be avoided with proper planning and forward communication.

Find Tasty Non-Alcoholic Beverages

Throw your own party centered around non-alcoholic beverages. Stock your bar with an assortment of juices, waters, smoothies, etc, and ask your friends to contribute to the pot. If you have friends who still enjoy a drink every now and again (and most of us do), do your best to avoid placing the focus on booze. Offer a cocktail hour that includes karaoke, poker, video games, movies or Pictionary. The options are virtually endless

Be Smart

Avoid placing yourself in situations that you know will be tempting. Meeting your friend for a glass a wine is a far cry from a full-blown backyard kegger. Use your intuition and ask yourself whether you’d be comfortable maintaining a sober mindset throughout the occasion.

Laugh!

If you happen to be caught in an alcohol fixation occasion, such as a wedding or family reunion, you’ll need to warp your thinking. Though drinking may be a large part of the event, there are ways to avoid relapse while taking focus off of your sobriety. Dance, talk, socialize and enjoy! Boredom and insecurity are by far two of the biggest reasons people utilize alcohol in social situations. By taking matters into your own hands, the power to enjoy is your own. Plus… there’s certain to be plenty of drunken entertainment to help validate your decision throughout the evening J

Need Help?

If you’re struggling with alcoholism, our addiction specialists are on-hand to answer and address your concerns. Call our rehab center in Los Angeles, CA today, and get on track towards the healthy, happy and sober lifestyle you deserve!

The Importance of Fun in Sobriety

When we first receive alcohol addiction help and get sober we can become very serious. While this is important since we are dealing with such a cunning, baffling, and powerful disease, it is also important to remember to have fun along the way.

Often when we talk about fun, or doing things just for fun, we talk about it in a dismissive way as if fun isn’t important. We tend to value the steps, 30 day rehabs, work, drug addiction detox, and seriousness, and we forget to pay our respects to the equally important, light side of silliness and laughter. After all we didn’t get sober to be miserable and surprisingly enough there is tons of fun to be had in sobriety.  We all know the feeling of euphoria that follows a good burst of laughter, and how it leaves us less stressed, more openhearted, and more ready to reach out to people. We are far more likely to walk down the street smiling and open after we’ve had a good laugh, and this tends to catch on, inspiring smiles from the people we pass who then positively influence everyone they encounter. Witnessing this kind of chain reaction makes you think that having fun might be one of our most powerful tools for changing the world. In while it is important to recover and do the work it takes to stay sober it is also important that we enjoy ourselves. It is our duty to be examples of this program and if were walking around miserable what kind of example are we really being? There will be hard times. Times when you might want to give up, or are not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel but if you keep doing the work and keep trying there will be many moments of nothing but pure happiness.

Laughter is good medicine for us alcoholics, and we all have this medicine available to us whenever we recall a funny story or act in a silly way. We magnify the effects of this medicine when we share it with the people in our lives. If we are lucky, they will have something funny to share with us as well, and the life-loving sound of laughter will continue to spread.

Getting The Most Of Your 12 Step Recovery Program

AA – The most widely known of the 12 step recovery programs – is based on the idea that an individual can succeed in their recovery from addiction through the process of letting go of problems they are unable to control. Members are taught to “be in the moment”, while placing their faith in a higher power to help guide their recovery. In this entry, we will offer up a few tips and tricks to help you get the most of your AA experience.

1 – Hop online and search for a local 12 step addiction recovery program in CA that is close to home and work. Though you will likely find a favorite meeting around town, it’s nice to have an idea of where you can turn in case a craving or mood should arise unexpectedly.

2 – Attend a few different meetings to gain a better understanding of your options. In some cases, it may take a few tries to locate a solid fit. Avoid becoming discouraged if you don’t find your match immediately.

3 – Once you’ve located a favorite, do your best to attend meetings regularly. If you’re fairly new to the program, you’ll want to make a concerted effort to attend 90 meetings during your first 90 days.

4 – Look and nail down a sponsor. A sponsor should be a longtime member who is able to guide you through the program, while offering support and encouragement throughout your recovery. If you ever find yourself in a tight spot… this will be the person you call.

5 – Get involved, and ask how you can contribute to the organization! Positions can include anything from conducting a meeting from time to time to traveling as a representative. The more involved in the program you are, the more devoted you will be to maintaining your sobriety.

6 – Make a point to read the “Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous” and other types of organization literature on a daily basis… especially in cases where you are unable to attending meetings in person.

7 – When you find yourself feeling to urge to use, or have gone through a rough day, take the time to recite the Serenity Prayer. It may seem like a trivial action initially, but the focus it brings is indisputable.

8 – Your recovery is not going to happen overnight. Know this, and take comfort in how far you’ve already come on a daily basis.

9 – Ask for help when needed. Recovery is never an easy process. If you feel the urge to use again, it’s important to put your pride away and contact someone who can help you through your situation and feelings. Whether a sponsor, addiction counselor, or friend, the simple act of reaching out is paramount in maintaining your sobriety if and when difficult situations present themselves.

10) Smile. Laugh. Love. Listen. Think happy thoughts.

If you’re searching for additional tips on maintaining your sobriety, or are interested in your available addiction treatment options, our Above It All addiction specialists are on hand now to answer your questions. Give us a call today!

Alcoholism, Agnosticism, and the Question of Faith

“Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith.  We couldn’t duck the issue; some of us had already walked far over the bridge of reason toward the desired shore of faith.  The outlines and the promise of the new land had brought luster to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits.  Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome.  We were grateful that reason had brought us so far but somehow we couldn’t quite step ashore. Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason that last mile and we did not like to lose our support.  That was natural but let us thinks a little more closely.  Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith?” –pg 53 We Agnostics from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

There are times in sobriety that require a great deal of courage and faith.  For example when we first seek alcohol addiction help and make the decision to get sober or other life changes such as going to a drug rehab in California, getting a new job, moving or starting a family.  Whatever it is, change usually requires a great amount of courage and faith.  Faith that everything will be okay and that there is something better for us on the other side if we just walk through the fear.  Through AA and measures we take after drug addiction detox, we learn how to practice faith and courage. We learn that through the use of the steps and a higher power we can walk through almost any situation with grace and dignity if we choose.  We also learn to live life on life’s terms knowing that everything is exactly how it should be in that moment.  Once we have the experience with a situation we never have to be fearful of it or the unknown again.  For issues relating to our sobriety this is a great way to build up a defense against the first drink, kind of like insurance.  For example, we build experience with staying sober one day at a time.  We now know how to stay sober and it is no longer a scary foreign concept for us anymore but rather a part of our everyday life.

Blessings in Sobriety, Part Two

When we get sober most of us have resentments we have held on to our whole lives. Many of us are not too happy about being an alcoholic and feel like we were dealt a bad hand. While others may have a hard time seeing past the difficulties of staying sober after receiving alcohol addiction help. Shortly after getting sober either by ourselves or through some sort of California alcohol rehab we are able to clean up our wreckage and the fog begins to lift. Either through AA or an addiction program in Los Angeles we are shown how to work the steps, and begin to feel relief. After working the steps we can then go on to live happy, joyous, and free lives. As it says in the big book we are rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence. As a result of our freedom we are finally able to know what happiness is in the truest sense of the word and are able to see how blessed we are. Often times we look at our glass as half empty only being able to see what we don’t have or the opportunities we have missed out on but what we don’t understand is that those things we don’t have, those missed opportunities , or those moments we don’t get what we want are actually blessings. They are blessings because it just means that our higher power is making room for something far greater than any little plans we might have made for ourselves. As its said in AA “if you want to make God laugh make plans.”

Blessings in Sobriety Part One

“That he has no attitude of holier than thou, nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful; that there are no fees to pay, no axes to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endure- these are the condition we have found most effective. After such as approach many take up their beds and walk again… we feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs. If we keep on the route we are going there is little doubt that much good will result.” – pg 18-19 There Is a Solution from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Through research we might stumble upon an affordable rehab, or read drug rehab blogs and realize that we too have just as good of a chance as others to recover. For most alcoholics we are so broken and lost that even the hope that we might be able to recover in itself is a blessing. Some of us come in and don’t know where to go for drug addiction detox, but once we find a place and get sober we realize we are much more blessed than we thought. We gain a group of friends and a support group. Loneliness fades and is replaced with love and happiness. Some of us go on to have families, go back to school, get our dream job, or our dream life even, but more importantly than any of that is the new set of thoughts, feelings, and actions we have available to us. We are no longer victims or full of self-pity. We come to learn how to love ourselves and others, as well as how to be comfortable in our own skin. Before we know it our lives and ourselves become much bigger than those people who came in just hoping to be able to survive long enough to get sober.

Acceptance (Part 2)

“Shakespeare said ‘All the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’ He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did.”- Acceptance was the Answer pg 417 from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Acceptance can be difficult when it comes to seeking alcohol addiction help and getting sober, especially because of the feelings of powerlessness that are usually involved. Often times we have an idea or expectations of what our life should look like, how our friends should act, what we “deserve”, what type of job we should have etc. our expectations all come down to people places and things and can greatly affect our ability to accept things as being exactly how they should be in that moment. We rob ourselves of happiness that way because while we may be getting what we need it’s not always what we want. Many alcoholics think we have better plans for ourselves then our higher power but when we step back and let things just happen then we can see exactly how things work out better then we could have ever imagined if we accept life on life’s terms. Many of us don’t know how to do that but through the help of places like a Los Angeles rehab or other California rehab centers there is hope; a light at the end of the tunnel for all of us.

What To Do After Rehab

Following your release from Above It All, you may be anxious in regard to the direction you should head next. In order to achieve the happy and fulfilling lifestyle you’re after, you’ll need to place a heavy emphasis on implementing the lessons learned throughout your substance abuse rehabilitation experience. If you do not continue your efforts once you’ve arrived home, the chances of maintaining your sobriety will quickly diminish. In this entry, we will offer up a few tips to help you through the transition from rehab back to everyday life.

Therapy

Locate a support group. Hop online and search for local 12-step meetings in your area. Most every region has meetings available, and membership is free of charge. Consider asking your Above It All addiction counselor for a recommendation on area groups. Not only will these meetings help maintain your commitment to sobriety, but they often provide members with a forum to express themselves openly while meeting and engaging with new friends.

Financial Rehab

Obtain a job that does not require you to handle alcohol or drugs. Your addiction counselor and family should be able to point you in the direct direction, but you must be driven to work. Sit yourself down and write out a plan to help pay off your expenses and debt. Stick to your plan, keeping a budget and paying off your debts one by one over time.

Relationship Rehab

Write out a list of the people that have been hurt by your actions prior to obtaining drug and alcohol addiction help. Next to each name, jot down the ways in which you hurt the individual, along with a way to rectify the situation. It’s important to note that not every situation may be fixable. In certain instances, the only way to make things right is to focus on your recovery, and show the individual how you’ve changed.

Sober Living

Make sure to determine your living arrangements prior to leaving Above It All. If you already have a home in mind, be sure to consider the potential outcomes of the arrangement. Does your family mind having you back? Do your friends have space available? Do your friends use alcohol or drugs?

Research local sober living homes and call a few to locate one that suits your needs and goals. Most homes will have a list of rules and guidelines to follow in order to maintain your residence. Rent will be due each month. Can you meet these requirements?

Relapse Prevention

Perhaps the most important concentration area post rehab is relapse prevention. Know your triggers and avoid situations that may include them. If certain triggers are unavoidable, be sure to have a plan set in place to deal with them properly. By sticking to your sobriety and the support system you arrange, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.

 

Sober Activities List

Once a patient has completed our substance abuse rehabilitation program, they may initially struggle to find sober activities that feed their interest. For many addicts, drug and alcohol use has become such a vital part of their social life that it can be hard to locate fun and excitement that does not involve using. In an effort to illuminate some social, engaging and sober activities, we’ve compiled a sober activities list to get you started.

Games

Whether for a weekend or weeknight, games are a great activity to keep you engaged and entertained. Card games, board games and role-playing games can involve friends, fun and laughs with a low cost and high level of engagement. Consider setting up a weekly game night, inviting your friends and  sharing a few sodas and snacks.

The Great Outdoors

As found with our own treatment center activities, the great outdoors can play a positive role in the recovery process. Biking, camping, hiking, swimming and even jogging are wonderful ways to stay fit, have fun and remain sober. Hop online and search of day hikes in your local area. Not only is it a great way to spend your time, but a positive environment to make new friends.

Dancing

Most areas have at least one studio where people can dance socially or sign up for lessons. Learn some new moves and make a point to attend to the social events. These gatherings are another great way to build relationships and network in a positive and sober manner.

The Big Screen!

Movies have always been the perfect escape from the day-to-day routine. If you’re not feeling social or just need some down time, a trip to the theater or movie night at home can be the perfect way to spend your time.

School

Even if you’re not seeking a degree, taking a class at your local community college is a great way to learn a new skill. Take a peek at available courses and choose something that interests you. Cooking, music, and psychology are all wonderful areas to lose yourself.

Final Note

Though it may take some time to locate an activity that suits your interests, the important part is that you try. Maybe you’re not the best dancer, or chef, or guitarist… it doesn’t matter. Find something that makes you happy and give it a go. When it comes to sober fun, the sky is the limit.

Finding Serenity in Sober Living

“Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.” How it Works page 64 From the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous

As alcoholics our ability and desire to hold on to all resentments or harms done to us or by us is unmatched by normal drinkers. We have a hard time letting go, forgiving, and forgetting. We have an amazing memory recall, except when it concerns alcohol and what it does to us. We would rather be right than be happy. Our thoughts are usually that of “if only you didn’t do this, then I wouldn’t have had to do that, if only they understood, or if only people acted right. I wouldn’t have had to retaliate.” Little do we know that the world was judging us by our actions while we were judging ourselves by our intentions. Resentment is the number one thing that takes people out after getting sober. Resentment also plays a key role in keeping us out there using and drinking longer than needed.  But how does one overcome a spiritual malady when one does not know they are spiritually sick? Furthermore, if that is the only way to “straighten out” mentally and physically, yet we cannot figure out the nature of our spiritual sickness and how to be rid of it, how can we ever get well? That’s why there are places and things such as; rehabs that take insurance, AA, drug rehab blogs, and other 12 step centered sober living CA. Through these places and things you or your loved ones can get the alcohol addiction help that is needed. As well as, getting the tools to overcome this spiritual malady called alcoholism, so that you never have to go through what you’re going through ever again.