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Meaningful recovery is much more than just staying sober. Success in recovery should be all-encompassing to bring purpose, direction, and meaning to all facets of your life. However, using drugs and alcohol for some time can consume all of your time and energy and could leave an empty place in your life that you might not know how to fill.
Achieving a full recovery requires participating in enjoyable, purposeful, and fulfilling activities. Understanding how vital exploring new activities is to recovery is the first step toward a new venture. Activities offer healthy alternatives to drugs and alcohol and other addictive outlets such as gambling, shopping, eating, and gaming. Let's look at how new activities help provide engaging and helpful ways to sustain a fulfilling recovery.
Promote Brain Health
When drugs and alcohol become connected to the brain with feeling good, anything that sparks a similar connection to the mind can become a triggering experience. When you engage in new activities, they can stimulate the brain, enhancing natural positive feelings and feel-good chemicals that build new neural connections to replace those of addiction.
Finding an activity with no association with past substance use can retrain your brain to find pleasure from another source. The more proactive and consistent you are with finding such activities, the more your brain will begin making healthy connections, moving away from feelings associated with substance use, and becoming that much stronger.
Making New Friends
You can't embark on your recovery journey, let alone even talk about your recovery journey, without recognizing the power of having a strong support system made up of friends, family, and peers from support groups. Participating in group activities that are not centered around using substances opens the door to new relationships and opportunities both personally and professionally. These environments provide a space for you to practice social skills without the clouding effects of drugs or alcohol.
Joining a yoga or painting class or working on a company project encourages teamwork built on trust and accountability. Even with the unique challenges of COVID-19, these things are still possible; look into online options for fun, group activities! These relationships develop mutual enjoyment and are a cornerstone for building sober and meaningful relationships that last a lifetime.
Prevent Loneliness and Depression
Isolation is the bane of a healthy recovery existence. When you experience loneliness, you may be tempted to return to unhealthy habits to make yourself feel better. However, sometimes in early recovery, you might avoid people from triggering situations that could lead to cravings; therefore, you isolate yourself. Over time, you might become more focused on what you cannot do, leading to further isolation over a more extended period. Being alone can develop other negative thoughts and behaviors such as anxiety, stress, and depression.
However, participating in new activities helps you realize that you are no longer defined by your past – that you do not need to live under the burden of addiction. New ventures help you explore new environments and slowly begin social interaction. Before long, the house-bound person can emerge in a world of greater possibilities.
Restore Confidence
Most people, at some point in their life, express self-doubt and uncertainty. While it is common to experience this during moments of high stress, it becomes life-hindering when you start to believe the negative thoughts that come from self-doubt. These thoughts often include guilt, shame, and regret. They are damaging to your mental health and physical health as they can cause you to disregard many necessary things you need in your life to sustain recovery.
By finding new ways to express creativity, regain physical strength, and reach meaningful goals, you begin to create tangible signs of your full potential. Exploring new and healthy activities helps you realize the value of your strengths. You can develop confidence as you build new skills and make connections with other like-minded individuals.
Where Do I Start?
The best part of exploring a new activity is that there are hundreds of activities to explore. As long as they motivate and inspire you, you will always be making the right move. They also don't require a lot of physical or financial effort to be meaningful. If you are having a tough time getting started, look to your community, whether local or online. You can explore ventures centered around giving back, such as volunteer work, you can rate and review local restaurants, or you can organize sober events either in-person or online. For times spent around the house, look for things that will educate and expand your skills, such as writing or playing music. You can also practice meditation or yoga.
Beginning your journey at START UP RECOVERY can help prepare you for the future you deserve. Our approach focuses on the personal and professional aspects of recovery. Therefore, we offer a large community of support that will provide a wealth of opportunities and resources to incorporate into your recovery life. We don't just aim to treat your addiction; we strive to transform you so that you can emerge and accomplish more than you ever thought possible. With 24/7 admissions, you can be confident that we are always ready to help. We also offer beachside amenities located in sunny SoCal – you will never fall short of inspiration. Remember, your life of recovery and success begins when you choose to take that first step toward realizing your dreams. To get started, reach out to START UP RECOVERY today by calling us at (310) 773-3809. Success and opportunity will be waiting for you.