Lasting sobriety is more than a commitment to remaining abstinent. It also means building personal connections in recovery that form a support network to help you find fulfillment and reinforce your commitment to your sobriety.1 Personal connections in recovery make the road to a more fulfilling and rewarding life easier.
Surrounding Yourself With Like Minds
Once you’ve begun your recovery, socializing with friends from your past could be a slippery slope. Ideally, you’ll develop new personal connections in recovery. Having new friends who are sober reduces the temptation for you to fall back into using. If the connections to the people and places of your past are too strong, you may need to take the more serious step of removing yourself from the environment where you used to use. This is especially true if you used to live with others who continue to use.
Personal Connections Provide Support When You Need Answers
Your sober journey can be confusing at times. You may find that you need advice on how to handle certain situations, such as the intricacies of romantic relationships or how to handle unexpected cravings.
When you make personal connections in recovery, you’re establishing a valuable resource you can turn to for advice. You’ll find out how others have handled themselves in similar situations. They’ll be able to share experiences and suggestions you can use in your own life.
Personal Connections in Recovery Help Your Sobriety
Recovery from addiction can be an enlightening and exhilarating experience, but it can also have some challenging days where you feel unsure or isolated. When you’ve built personal connections in recovery, there will be someone to turn to in these times who knows how you’re feeling and can talk you through it.
Personal Connections in Recovery Help Relieve Stigma
Experiencing stigma can influence how you see yourself. This negative experience can come with a heavy toll. Research has shown that stigma contributes to a variety of detrimental outcomes, including decreased mental and physical health.2
Surround yourself with personal connections in recovery to help boost a positive self-image. If you’re experiencing stigma from people who don’t understand that addiction is a disease, you’ll be able to balance those attitudes—and be healthier for it—when you’re with other sober people. It’s important to have these personal connections in recovery to remind yourself that who and what you are is nothing to be ashamed of.
Make Personal Connections Easier by Going to Meetings
Whether you’ve decided to move to a new city or return home after treatment, you may lose some of the personal connections in recovery that you made while at the treatment center. Become part of a local support system that has regular meetings. This can mean professional rehabilitation outpatient groups or community meetings held by organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Getting together with other people focused on their sobriety can be vital to your recovery.