Sobriety and self care are hand in glove, two peas in a pod, soulmates. I personally believe that alcoholism and addiction, beyond their potential biological factors, have their roots in abuse, neglect, and self harm. So, it would make sense then that if our goal is to stay sober, we must develop good habits that insure we take good care of ourselves.
Firstly, self care is not selfish. Consider this: how can you reasonably take care of others who depend on you if you can’t/don’t take care of yourself? The answer is, you can’t. Not for long anyway before everything starts to fall apart.
Self care is about much more than treating yourself to a spa day or going on vacation. Sure, it can include these things, but true self care is about the constant care and feeding of both your physical and mental health. And I would argue that you are not healthy if either of these is not up to par. Add to the physical and mental aspects one of spirituality and we now have a complete picture of what we are working toward when we practice self care.
The term spirituality often comes with baggage related to religion or dogma, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Of course, many deeply spiritual people are also deeply religious. Maybe you’re one of them. That’s perfectly okay in my book as belief in a higher power is often required to complete most 12 step programs. But my own spirituality began budding only after I began my sobriety journey and my daily meditation practice.
Self Care Needs To Be Personalized
I truly believe that sobriety and self care is a highly personal thing. We are all on our own journeys and what works for me may not work for you and what works for you may not work for somebody else. Therefore, what follows is a list of suggestions. These self care practices have helped me tremendously on my own sobriety journey. You may find some of them helpful and others to be of little interest. Please share your self care ideas in the comments below as others who visit this blog may benefit from an ever expanding list of options.
Okay, then, let’s get started.
Unplug
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.
– Annie Lamott
The number one most important practice in my sobriety self care routine is daily meditation. I owe meditation and mindfulness a debt of gratitude for its contribution to my sobriety. So much so, that as of the publication of this blog entry, I’ve meditated 263 consecutive days. In that time, I’ve completed 471 meditations over the course of 111 hours. And that’s just what I’m tracking in my Lojong app.
On top of that, I’m now doing meditations on YouTube and other websites. Many of these last 30 – 40 minutes and explore a range of topics. Needlessly to say, the stats from my app are understated.
Now, it’s important that these numbers don’t scare you. I certainly didn’t start my meditation this aggressively. During my first several weeks, I did simple 5-7 minute meditations and breathing exercises. As I went, I received so much benefit that I increased the frequency from a few times a week, to daily, to multiple times a day. And the meditations grew from 5 minutes to an average of just over 15 minutes.
That’s when I noticed the benefits of this self care practice really start to take hold. At day 35, I quit smoking pot after being a daily smoker for over two decades! I’m now pot sober for almost eight months. I’ve reduced my drinking from 5+ nights per weeks (and 6-10 beers at a shot) to just a couple of beers in a sitting, once or twice a month. In fact, I just completed my first Dry January last month. This month will be a Sugar Free February, and am about to embark upon a Dry Sugar Free March.
The Benefits Of Unplugging
All this because I choose to unplug for a few minutes every morning. With meditation I unplug from attachment, emotional baggage, the past, regret, guilt, and all kinds of other negative emotions. Unplugging relieves me of physical, emotional, and mental stress. It helps me plan my day. And, most importantly, meditation puts me in the proper mindset to overcome whatever challenges I may face.
In my book, when it comes to sobriety self care, meditation packs a lot of punch. And it does so with a very minimal time commitment.
Journaling for Self Care
Journaling was a self care activity that I began practicing about two months after I began daily meditation. I found that when I took a few minutes to unplug, my mind raced with all kinds of thoughts, desires, to-do’s, emotions, memory, and the like.
I know that my mind was always racing that way. It’s just that I was never quiet enough to stop and observe this freeway of thoughts speeding by. But once I noticed it, I needed to capture those thoughts somehow and cast them out of my stream of consciousness. That’s where journaling came in.
As you take time for self reflection, rather than giving thoughts (particularly negative ones) permanent mental real estate, you can coax them to flow out through the pen in your hand on onto a piece of paper. This is incredibly cathartic. You’re cleaning out your mental attic of all the crap piled up over the course of your lifetime.
For me, once it’s on the paper, it’s gone. I’ve confronted it, reflected on it, and let it go. A big component of self care is letting go, and I’ve found journaling to be second only to meditation in its ability to make peace and disassociate. Journaling is the reason this blog exists! The first 130 entries are straight out of my daily sobriety journal with all its ups and downs, successes, and failures.
When I look back through my journals (I’m on my third now), I’m amazed at how much I’ve made peace with and how far I’ve come in my recovery.
Setting Boundaries
Learning to set boundaries is key to protecting your sobriety. Just because it’s third on this list does not make it any less important than meditation or journaling. In fact, setting boundaries is one of the most important aspects of self care we can practice.
Setting boundaries often means letting your former drinking buddies know that you’re not going to join them at the pub and dealing with peer pressure to drink if and when you do. It’s about setting emotional boundaries that give you the courage to speak up when somebody violates your resolve or says something upsetting.
In self care, setting boundaries can look different for different people. For me, I’m often in situations where I’m surrounded by pot smokers. My wife’s entire family, including her octogenarian father, smoke pot. And until eight months ago, I’d happily join them! But now, I’ve drawn a hard line and let them know I don’t smoke pot anymore. This is often met with disapproval or disbelief (“Ya, right. You’re just taking a little time off.”), but I am unwavering.
The same is true of social situations. While I still drink beer on occasion, I don’t drink most of the time. This includes most social outings. I simply volunteer to be the designated driver and let everyone know I won’t be drinking tonight. This was hard at first. Peer pressure came and went. Now my friends just accept my choices and are grateful they can get plastered and not worry about getting home.
Self Care in Nature
I am very fortunate to live in a place where I am surrounded by nature. I just need to walk through my back gate, and I have access to miles of hiking, biking, and equestrian trails. Soon after beginning my meditation practice, I added a 4-5 mile hike. I try to hike everyday, but weather and or work/life interfere from time to time. It’s fair to say that I hike on average 5-7 days a week depending. It’s now an important part of my daily morning routine.
From a self care perspective, I find time spent in nature to be both calming and invigorating. My mind is calmed while my body is invigorated. The workout helps me to release stress and anxiety. In addition, I often find myself working through questions that emerged during my morning meditation. My walks give me extra time to contemplate these questions.
When I return home, my body feel great and my mind is clear. I’m energized and prepared to tackle my day.
Self Care Hobbies & Activities
I’ve written a whole blog on the subject of sobriety hobbies and activities. I won’t rehash them all here, but in my personal experience finding things to fill the time formerly spent drinking and smoking pot is critical to staying sober.
Take a moment and think about how much time you spent (or spend) drunk, high, or both. If you’re anything like me, it probably equated to something like 30 hours a week! And this doesn’t include time spent dealing with hangovers and lethargy. It’s crazy when you think about it in those terms.
While 30 hours provides significant opportunity to accomplish great things, it also presents quite a challenge in filling all that time. It’s nearly a full work week.
The good news is that we live in a world of richness and there is no shortage of fun, interesting, and fulfilling ways to invest in yourself and others. Whether that’s reading, learning a musical instrument, taking an art class, learning to scuba dive, volunteering at a local charity or school, playing bridge, or any of a million other things. What you choose to fill all your new found time with isn’t important, what’s important is that you fill that time with things that stimulate and engage you.
You may try something for a while and get bored. That’s fine and normal. It’s an opportunity to try out something else. Eventually, enough things will stick and you may, like me, find that drinking soon gets in the way of all this great fun you’ve discovered!
In Conclusion
Frankly, what I’ve covered here is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the myriad options available for sobriety self care. These items represent important self care practices that have been instrumental in creating a positive and fulfilling life for me. As I’ve mentioned before, the things you may settle on could look a lot different from mine. That’s okay and to be expected. Your self care is about you, not me or anyone else!
I hope that you take encouragement from this post and become curious about self care. I can say that it’s made all the difference in my journey. And I wish you every success on yours!
