Addiction recovery is a life-long journey filled with many ups and downs. While seeking professional treatment for your addiction is a great first step toward achieving long-term sobriety, it’s important to understand that your recovery journey doesn’t just stop once you’ve gotten sober and received treatment.
Unfortunately, 40-60% of recovering addicts who’ve received treatment relapse. This staggering statistic showcases just how important it is to establish and practice crucial life skills in addiction recovery- and beyond. Keep reading to learn more about the essential life skills in addiction recovery you should prioritize below.
At Grace Recovery, we are a leading drug and alcohol rehab that provides compassionate care so you can safely and effectively break free from addiction. We provide a wide range of addiction treatment options and programs to ensure you have the best possible care to safely and effectively progress along your recovery journey. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you lead a healthier quality of life.
5 Crucial Life Skills in Addiction Recovery
Recovery involves many ups and downs. The road to recovery is exciting; however, facing triggers and other difficulties along the way is inevitable. This is why it’s critical to understand 5 of the crucial life skills in addiction recovery below to help maintain long-term recovery and reduce your risk of relapsing.
- Asking for Help Is Important
First, regardless of where you are in your recovery journey, you should never be afraid to ask for help. Whether you have been sober for 1 month or 5 years, you will always face triggers that can potentially jeopardize your sobriety. This is why it’s crucial to ask for help, whether you seek professional help, help from a support group, or support from loved ones to help keep you accountable and maintain your sobriety.
- Building Healthy Relationships with Others
Similar to the point above, building and maintaining healthy relationships with others is critical. Relationships with trusted loved ones, therapists, and other recovering addicts who can relate to what you are going through can help support you and keep you accountable along your road to recovery.
- Practicing Healthy Lifestyle Habits & Coping Skills
Next, it’s important to practice healthy lifestyle habits and coping skills to help you as you face triggers in your life. Facing triggers is inevitable, this is why it’s important to have coping strategies in place you can turn to when you face those triggers to reduce your risk of relapse.
- Learning How to Manage Stress in a Healthy Manner
Stress is a normal part of life. However, failure to handle your stress in a healthy manner can run the risk of increasing your risk of relapse. Therefore, another crucial life skill in addiction recovery you need to learn is how to manage stress in a healthy manner. This is because you’ll undoubtedly face stress when you transition back into everyday life. Knowing how to handle that stress in a healthy manner, such as prioritizing consistent exercise, rather than turning to drugs or alcohol is important.
- Being Open and Honest About Your Recovery Progress
Finally, it’s important to be open and honest about your recovery progress. Similar to being honest about whether you need help or not in your recovery, it’s important to be honest with yourself about where you’re at in your recovery journey. If you suspect you are at risk of turning back into unhealthy habits that could jeopardize your recovery, it’s crucial you proactively work to reduce your risk of relapsing by asking for help and taking steps to help maintain your recovery (i.e. attending a support group, going to therapy, etc.).
Help Is Available
As you can see, there are several crucial life skills in addiction recovery that you need to prioritize and master. From not being afraid to ask for help to practicing healthy coping strategies on a consistent basis, all of these life skills will help you maintain sobriety while at the same being able to lead a healthier, happier quality of life.
Our compassionate team at Grace Recovery is here to help you overcome addiction and achieve long-lasting sobriety. We understand how debilitating a disease addiction can be. That’s why our caring team of addiction specialists is here to help you safely overcome your addiction so you can regain control of your health and quality of life for the better. Ready to start your recovery journey? Contact us today!