Overcoming fears in any situation is difficult, but when it involves a life change, it can be especially challenging. Face your fears of recovery, and talk about them with your loved ones. Then be prepared to work hard and to have setbacks. You will be ready to start your new, sober life.
Seven Common Fears in Recovery (and Why Sobriety Is Still Worth It)
Yet, at the same time, it may feel better just to give in and use because that’s what they expect from you. If you try to stop using and fail, you’re disappointing them all over again. As you work through the detox process, you can start to feel the overwhelming frustration and anxiety build around being sober. Post-detox, you may have a wide range of emotions flooding your mind. You’re likely also to start feeling the stress build, perhaps the same stress that leads you down the path to using. Getting sober is when someone stops using an intoxicating substance.
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Sobriety is kind of like the fast-pass line at Disneyland, except the ride is growing up. While making the decision to be sober was the best thing I’ve ever done, it’s also one of the hardest. Not only because not drinking is hard, but also because we live in a society where most everyone around us drinks. For more information about substance use disorder and the recovery process, please contact us below or find us on social media. At The Ranch at Dove Tree, a key component of our process is to give you the tools you need to move forward.
- Remember to care for yourself, seek supportive relationships, and consider seeking help from a therapist.
- The first step in addressing a fear of sobriety is acknowledging the fear itself.
- Therapy and support groups can help individuals in recovery work through self-doubt and pain.
- That’s why you started using in the first place.
Be proactive in seeking help to reduce fears of relapsing
Addicts will have to face their relationships with people again, with their families, friends, and co-workers. They may have wronged some of these people, or they might be embarrassed about how they once acted. They’ll have to feel emotions again without numbing them with drink or drug and maneuver their way through tricky family and relationship dynamics. Addiction can be a way to avoid the things we don’t want to deal with. Sobriety means having to face uncomfortable truths about ourselves and others and having to stand up and be who we are.
We use drugs to numb ourselves and our emotions and to push off thinking for another day. But when we no longer have those devices at our disposal, we’re left with only our minds, our willpower and our inner strength to carry us through the hard times. We’re forced to think and analyze our problems, to come up with solutions, and in doing so we may fail or make mistakes. But that’s how we grow and learn, and how we learn to cope better when the next challenge presents itself. Over time, our ability to cope and come up with solutions that work for us becomes easier and easier. I also wonder if meeting with a therapist as a family would help break down some of the communication barriers it sounds like you all are encountering as you navigate grief, but also the future.
Just focus on talking to your therapist, working through today’s challenges and making it another 24 hours without using. Sobriety can be a fixed-term goal like staying sober for a set period (such as Dry January), or a lifelong goal of staying sober from all substances. Sobriety can be a particularly challenging pursuit for someone with an addiction like alcohol use disorder. After months or years of being fixated on drugs and alcohol, who are you if you arent an addict?
When we asked our alumna to describe what being sober feels like, she gave a detailed and inviting description that captured these key points. Becoming sober isn’t just about abstaining from alcohol. It’s a subversive, hardcore choice to take your life into your own hands. It’s an opportunity to grow into your bones, and every single https://rehabliving.net/is-marijuana-addictive-national-institute-on-drug/ crap thing that happens to you on the way only makes you stronger. I don’t have that much sex, and that’s more like me saying, I no longer lower my standards and sleep with just anyone because of beer goggles. There’s no easy pass for me anymore, no more getting drunk and slipping past the part where you get to know each other.
The prospect of being without the one thing that relieves their sense of low self-esteem and lack of self-love can be very scary. There are people for which sobriety is a deal-breaker. This might seem like a terrible thing; this is not a terrible thing. This is a JOYOUS and wonderful thing because it easily sorts out the ones that have a weird relationship with alcohol, or the ones that just aren’t for you. It will hurt (pretty bad at first), but in time you will come to see it as the gift it is—and you won’t waste time getting to know the wrong person. Ask any sober person whether they want to go to a cocktail party or stay in with a pack of La Croix, The Crown, and a bathrobe.
It’s often triggered by particularly loud noises that cause intense fright, but can extend to a variety of startling, strange or overwhelming noises. The interior ministry has confiscated the driving licenses of 12,000 people this year alone for being drunk behind the wheel. Authorities say alcohol abuse is cited in half of all domestic violence cases and is the most commonly cited reason for divorce.
💙 Explore the importance of Embracing Fears and how accepting what you’re afraid of can help you make changes. While removing substances from your routine can seem challenging, taking it step by step may help you regain control and even feel empowered. My husband and I are in pain, but Mariah seems to be completely consumed by it. She struggles at school and can’t seem to enjoy seeing friends or participate in her previous favorite things, like soccer.
With proper counseling and/or a good recovery program, you’ll learn important tools for navigating these relationships. Navigating your existing relationships in sobriety is a huge challenge. The good thing is that you don’t have to worry about that in the beginning. Maybe these people have been in your life since childhood, and you’ve all fallen into the same trap. You’ve got history, but you’ve also got baggage.
I want to move back home to be closer to my family who are my best support system right now. But I do not know if my husband would want to move back—and my daughter would be absolutely devastated if we moved without her dad. The fear of decision-making can be paralyzing—ranging from what to eat for dinner to significant life choices like career moves or relationships. The fear of making the wrong choice can lead to chronic procrastination, avoidance and reliance on others to make decisions for them. Life becomes a series of stressful dilemmas, where each decision feels like a potential catastrophe waiting to happen. While you’re in active addiction, the life you imagine without drugs seems awful.
Get the help you need from a therapist near you–a FREE service from Psychology Today. The truth is, your fear may entirely disappear and never come back again. There are no guarantees, and the real way of overcoming your fear is about letting go of trying to control it. Sober stresses seriousness of purpose and absence of levity or frivolity. Fear itself is a scientific, physical occurrence in the body.
Sobriety, therefore, is an ongoing commitment to a set of actions and behaviors that prevent relapse. If an individual is willing and open to continual treatment and work on themselves then achieving sobriety is possible. Recognizing addiction as a medical condition can remove the stigma and open doors to evidence-based treatments that are proven to be effective in helping addicts achieve long-term sobriety. Since addiction is a chronic relapsing disease, treatment is not always effective and successful immediately. By focusing on these three pillars, individuals can establish a state of sobriety where they are not only drug-free but also engaged in personal growth and healthy coping mechanisms. Recovery from drug addiction is not just a one-time event but a continuous process.
Then Biden fell ill with COVID, which was another reminder of his age and mortality. Chronophobia, according to a 2020 study from the Asian Journal of Psychiatry, is the fear of passing time. Cibophobia—also known as sitophobia—involves a persistent and irrational fear of food.
Please be aware, this is not a matter of pressuring yourself to confront your fear through brute force. This would be neither kind nor particularly helpful. Instead, it’s about showing yourself compassion, and taking yourself by the hand – as if you were holding a frightened child. It’s okay to have all these feelings and these https://rehabliving.net/ self-doubts; they are allowed to be here. Part of your treatment journey will involve identifying these triggers and developing coping strategies. Use these tools to create a plan for navigating the summer season, whether it’s participating in sober activities or having a support system in place for any challenges that arise.
This can include toxic relationships in which you feel unheard, misunderstood, unsupported, demeaned, unsafe, and/or attacked. The related stress may increase the risk of relapse. Relapse (using substances again after stopping) can and does happen, with 85% of people experiencing relapse at least once and half of them doing so within the first two weeks of sobriety. Shame is having negative beliefs about yourself and your self-worth. Guilt is having negative feelings about your past behavior. People in recovery can experience a lot of shame simply for having become addicted in the first place.