If you’re a recovered alcoholic or substance abuser, you know that escaping your addiction through rehab and recovery gave you a second chance at life. It’s a cause for celebration, after struggling through addiction and completing a rehab program successfully. You deserve to be acknowledged for your success!

However, it’s also important to remember that there can be dangers associated with the good times, as well as the bad times. It is therefore vital that people in recovery learn to enjoy their success without putting their sobriety in danger.
There can be pitfalls associated with experiencing success in recovery, which are more likely to be a problem for those who are newly sober:

Pitfalls Associated with Experiencing Success in Recovery

We Only Have to Change One Thing

When we come to recovery for the first time, we’re told we only have to change one thing: Everything! But just like it says in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, How It Works, “This sounds like a big order and we can’t do it all at once, we didn’t become addicted in one day, so remember, easy does it.” And we say, “But do it!” We’re told, the person we are today will use again, so change must happen in order for us to stay clean and sober.

Look where we’ve ended up! We are at meeting instead of a bar on a Friday night. Whoever would have thought this would happen? It is time to put away our old ways of thinking and doing and try something different, otherwise we are guaranteed more pain, suffering and misery.

People who are trapped in addiction can suffer greatly. Their obsession with alcohol and drugs can lead to the destruction of everything they hold dear. It is usually obvious that their addictive behavior is the source of the misery, but the individual may still be unwilling to change. This is because there is comfort in familiarity and change takes a great deal of courage because it is a step into the unknown. it is vital that people summon up the necessary courage to move forward.

There is no doubt that entering recovery is a courageous move. Change is never easy – even when it means that people are leaving a miserable situation for a much better one. Embracing change during recovery takes courage, because recovery is a process and not an event. Becoming sober is just the first step; there will be plenty more challenges ahead.

We Only Have to Change One Thing: Everything!

“If I stop drinking and using drugs, life will be dull and boring.”

“Without drinking, I will have nothing to do at parties.”

“What will happen to me if I stop getting high? I won’t know what to do…”
These are all valid concerns for anyone considering putting down drugs and or alcohol. Just because we stop getting high and or drinking, doesn’t mean that life has to stop, too. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous provide the tools we need to stop using, lose the desire to drink or drug and find a new way to live. The tools are the 12 Steps which are a design for living.

It is suggest that we go to 90 meeting in 90 days when first getting clean and sober. Studies have shown it can take up to 90 days to start a new habit.