Coping with Sobriety

Sobriety can be a daunting journey. Unfortunately, patients dealing with this incredibly hard journey can have a range of issues during their road to recovery. One of the major issues some of us deal with in our day-to-day life is anxiety. A patient in recovery is no exception to this and unfortunately, the process can cause anxiety to become an even bigger issue than before. Luckily there are a few ways to cope with these issues while practicing sobriety.

Anxiety is often times the reason a person turns to drugs and alcohol. Anxiety can be extremely dangerous for a patient because if not maintained can cause a relapse. You can often have a strong desire to use drugs or alcohol because of anxiety.

Anxiety Triggers and Sobriety

Anxiety can have lots of triggers. These triggers could cause a patient to lose control of their sobriety and use again. Some of these triggers are.

• Isolation/loneliness
• Trouble sleeping
• New environments and surrounds
• Starting a new career
• Meeting new people

Feeling this way is normal but without the right skills to deal with these issues, a patient is susceptible to losing control and going back to drugs or alcohol. Here are some tips and tricks to dealing with these issues when they arise to reduce the likelihood of relapse.

Talk to your peers

People often forget the age-old stress reducer of just talking problems out. Letting out the emotions you are feeling in a healthy way is one

of the easiest coping methods to reduce the stress of anxiety. Lots of times individuals can have deep insight into these issues. Lots of us deal with anxiety in our day-to-day lives. Talking to someone instead of letting it eat you up inside is a healthy way we can deal with these issues. It can be anyone a friend, parent, therapist, or sibling. Keeping it inside unfortunately could cause more of a threat to a patient’s sobriety and could trigger a relapse.

Grounding Exercises for Sobriety

Another good way to cope with anxiety and especially anxiety attacks is to practice grounding techniques or exercises. These exercises help a patient acknowledge their surroundings and help to get back to a place of thinking clearly.  One of these methods is touching something near you then acknowledging all aspects of that object. What color is it? How heavy is it? And so on. This helps your mind grab a grip on something and can distract you from feelings of anxiety. Describing your surroundings is also another tool used as a grounding exercise. Try to look around and gather as much detail as possible about your environment in your mind. This can help put your mind at ease and drastically reduce stress.

Meditation and Sobriety

Meditation is a set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of focus and awareness. Meditation has been shown to have a wide variety of benefits one of them being reducing stress and anxiety. Find a quiet place, close your eyes, and let your mind be free of everything that you have been thinking about. Humans can have up to 60,000 thoughts per day. Taking the time to give your mind a

rest from all this thinking has shown to have amazing benefits for reducing stress and anxiety.

Reducing or eliminating anxiety can be extremely challenging. It can take a toll on your mind as well as your body. If you find yourself having thoughts of relapse try using some of these tools to overcome your cravings and return your mind to a healthy state.