How to Recommit to Your Recovery | September is National Recovery Month

Recovery does not happen overnight; it is an ongoing process. After you have successfully completed your addiction treatment program, you will need to continue to focus on a sober, healthy life in the years ahead. September is National Recovery Month: a great time to celebrate your success and to recommit to your recovery.

Hope and Resilience

National Recovery Month is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Their goal is to educate others on how people with mental and substance use disorders can live healthy and rewarding lives. SAMHSA emphasizes that your recovery from drug or alcohol addiction is a process of change through which you improve your health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and work toward reaching your full potential.

The foundation of your successful future is hope: the belief that your challenges and conditions can be overcome. This process is highly personal and can occur via many pathways. Your successful recovery is characterized by continual growth and improvement in your health and wellness; it may even involve setbacks. Because those setbacks are a natural part of life, resilience is also a key component of your recovery.

Learn from Your Slips

If you do slip in recovery, it is important to understand that you have not failed. This is the perfect opportunity to learn from past mistakes and to recommit to your recovery. The first step is to explore the reasons behind the slip and to understand what triggered it in the first place. Without some serious soul-searching, you will be less able to avoid relapse in the future.

There is no need to feel guilty if you slip. The most important thing to remember is that you need to take it seriously and acknowledge the mistake, which is temporary, and which gives you the opportunity to learn. Using the lessons from the slip to recommit to your recovery, keep in mind several very important points:

• Instead of feeling guilty, redouble your effort to achieve and maintain sobriety.
• The fact that you are recommitting means that you understand the depth of your addiction.
• Instead of feeling shame about your mistakes, look at them squarely and identify what you need to do to avoid making them again.
• Do not feel like you’ve lost everything and gone back to day one. Everything we do in life informs our recovery moving forward. A person who has been sober for several days often experiences sobriety in a more profound way than someone who has been sober for years. Use that feeling to move your recovery forward.

Celebrate Your Successes

In recovery, you will more than likely set goals for your life, your health, your family, and your work. Take the opportunity to celebrate your successes when you achieve those goals. Use those successes to recommit to your recovery.

Acknowledging and celebrating the hard work of recovery is helpful for keeping you motivated and reminding you why you took this brave step toward sobriety in the first place. Just be sure that your rewards don’t involve drugs or alcohol. Instead, focus on things, experiences, and activities that will support your new, healthy lifestyle.

Take Time for Self-Care

In recovery from addiction to drugs or alcohol, you will begin to feel healthier. Take the time now, during National Recovery Month, to focus on the self-care that is so important to your continued well-being. Exercise, meditation, and a nutritional diet will help you feel better about yourself and that, in turn, will help you recommit to your recovery. Practicing yoga and mindfulness, for example, can help calm your stress and anxiety, enabling you to focus more on continuing a successful recovery.

Turn to Your Support System

When you recommit to your recovery, reach out to your support system to let them know so they can help you maintain your healthier sober life. Having positive influences and a solid support system is essential. The more people you can turn to for encouragement, guidance, and a listening ear, the better your chances for a successful recovery.

Make meetings a priority. Join a recovery support group such as a 12-step program and attend meetings regularly. Spending time with people who understand exactly what you’re going through can be very healing. You can also benefit from the shared experiences of the group members and learn what others have done to stay sober.

Focus on the Future

Focusing on a positive future is one of the most effective ways to recommit to your recovery. Your addiction is in the past. While you should be aware of triggers and possible slips, don’t dwell on your past. You’re not there anymore. You’re on a promising path forward, to a healthy recovery.

Contact R&A Therapeutic Partners for Support for Your Recovery

At R&A Therapeutic Partners, we offer the therapy you need to help you learn healthy living skills and to get control of your life again. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we want you to stay safe and healthy, so we offer telehealth and online therapy services for your continued well-being.

Please contact the Miami therapeutic consultants Raymond Estefania and Ana Moreno for help with your recovery from addiction to drugs or alcohol. Call R&A Therapeutic Partners at 786-452-7352 to schedule your appointment.

At R&A Therapeutic Partners Raymond Estefania and Ana Moreno specialize in substance use and mental health disorder evaluations, treatment, intervention and therapeutic/educational consulting for clients throughout the greater South Florida area, as well as nationally and internationally. For more resources and information please visit Therapeutic-Partners.com or on Facebook.