Staying Sober Archives

Back to School & Sober: 12 Tips for Success

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Heading back to school this fall as a newly sober person? Maybe you just finished treatment, or maybe you took a year off to build a really strong foundation for your recovery.

Wherever you are in your recovery, you might be nervous about heading back to school. Totally understandable. Maybe you’re worried you’ll be the only person not partying. You might fear you won’t have any fun. You might be afraid you’ll be tempted to use again, being surrounded by lots of partying students.

The good news is, these days there are many high school and college students in recovery. You are not the only one. Far from it.

With some preparation you can have a school year filled with academic achievements, a great social life, and no relapse. Below, a dozen ideas to help you succeed:

1. Get involved in a recovery program. Recovery programs help build self-esteem, self-respect, … Read more...

Back to School & Sober: How to Resist Peer Pressure

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“I just went back to school after six weeks of addiction treatment and summer vacation. What do I do when my friends ask if I want to get high?”

When you go back to school you will likely run into temptations to drink to use drugs. You need to make a plan to deal with this kind of situation long before it comes up, or you might have trouble refusing these offers.

Peer pressure can be tough to fight, but you can resist. All you need are the right tools. You probably got some of them in treatment, and you’ll pick up others as you go to more AA or NA meetings.

Talk about this issue with your counselor, your sponsor, and other students at your school who are in a recovery fellowship. Ask them exactly what they do to avoid problems. The following tips may also help:

Think ahead

How to Clean Up Your Online Reputation

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If you’re like many people, you live a good portion of your life online. You’ve been sharing bits of yourself on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MySpace, Flickr and other online venues for years. If you’ve been drinking and doing drugs, some of what you and others have shared about you may be less than flattering.

Now that you are getting into recovery and a life of sobriety, you might want to get rid of some of that evidence of your past life. You also need to get rid of any photos or comments (or online friends) that could act as a trigger and potentially lead you to a relapse.

Do this cleanup for yourself, so you can avoid running into reminders of your past and can concentrate on where you are now. Do it also so you can project a better image for future employers and others. (You might want to … Read more...

37 Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During The Holidays

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For some people in recovery, the holidays can be tough. But you can make it to January with your sobriety intact. You don’t have to let unfulfilled expectations, stressful family dynamics, or crazy in-laws threaten your recovery. Not to mention all those holiday parties.

You just need a bit of preparation. Start planning your strategy now, with these #soberholidays tips from The Recovery Book and the workbook companion My Life in Recovery.

Sober Holidays Tip #1: Remind yourself every single morning how good it feels to be sober (and how great it will feel come January). Plant that thought in your mind right now, and think about it every morning. Stick a note on your bathroom mirror to remind yourself to think about it every day.

>> Download the first 3 chapters of The Recovery Book FREE at Amazon <<

>> Download a free sample of My Life in Recovery… Read more...

37 Ideas to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 2)

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For tips 1-20, see 37 Tips to Help You Stay Sober During the Holidays (part 1).

Sober Holidays Tip #21 Bring your own beverage. If a holiday celebration includes the use of alcoholic beverages (such as wine at Passover), make sure in advance that there are substitutes (such as grape juice) for you and anyone else who doesn’t want to drink the harder stuff.

Sober Holidays Tip #22 Stay sober at the party: Don’t go it alone. Bring along an AA buddy or a hired sober companion. Or take someone at the party into your confidence (the host, a friend, even a waiter); candor will serve you better than pride, embarrassment, or guilt. Tell them that you can’t drink, and enlist them as bodyguard. It will make the event easier for you, and will keep you from winding up in a relapse. If you can’t take someone with you, … Read more...

Recovery Zone ReCheck – New in The Recovery Book

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The Recovery Zone ReCheck is a simple relapse prevention plan.

In every Recovery Zone, at all times, you will be at some risk of relapse, often when you least expect it. The Recovery Zone ReCheck helps you avoid relapses by regularly taking stock of your life.

Once a month or so, use the three Recovery Zone ReCheck questions to assess your life. They will help you see when changes are coming up—relationships, work, health, medication and so on—that could trigger a relapse. These changes can be almost anything: dental procedure, divorce, getting a raise, having a baby, moving to a new town.

When you spot such road blocks, you move back a Zone or two, brush up on the guidelines of that Zone, re-commit to sobriety, and re-focus on recovery. See pages 18-21 in The Recovery Book for all the details.