Deciding to get help for your substance abuse was a giant challenge that you have now conquered, or are in the process of conquering. While this is a hugely valuable step on your mission to sobriety the challenges don’t stop when you leave rehab.
Life after rehab will challenge you physically, mentally, and emotionally. You will have to let go of your life from before rehab and build again from the beginning. You will be forced to reevaluate relationships with family and friends, change your daily routine, and look for a new sense of purpose.
Only by addressing every aspect of your life will you be able to grow, learn, and create a bright future.
Make Amends
As you kick off your journey of rebirth after leaving rehab it is vital that you make amends with both yourself and anyone close to you that you may have hurt during your time struggling with addiction.
Making amends with yourself is an abstract concept. It is extremely hard to forgive yourself for hurting yourself and people around you. To cross this bridge many people turn to holistic healing, trust in their support systems, and otherwise just work to forgive themselves.
However you decide to make amends with yourself it is vital that you remember that it was your addiction, not you, that forced you to make the choices you made. Now that you have worked to address that addiction you can acknowledge that you have made changes and will continue to work to change. Creating a distinct boundary from before finding help and now will enable you to keep your actions separate in your mind and should help you forgive yourself.
Making amends with other people is more straightforward, but will still be emotionally difficult. To make amends with your family and friends that you may have hurt during your struggles you will have to sit down and have serious conversations. You will need to explain but not excuse your actions and ask for forgiveness. Luckily many people will be understanding of your situation and will work with you to strengthen bonds that may have been damaged.
Reevaluate Relationships
Making amends with those around you will be a great way to start reevaluating all of your relationships. This is another difficult step on your way to creating a bright future. After rehab you will be forced to look at family and friends that were close to you and decide if they are going to fit in to your new life.
While you cannot change who your family is, you must still look at them critically. Now that you have gone for help with your addiction are they there to support you? Are they willing to listen to your new needs and adapt to your new lifestyle? All of these questions are difficult to ask and some answers will mean you need to make difficult choices in regards to your relationship with your family.
When evaluating your relationship with your friends you will have to consider what you do with your free time when around people and decide if that will be healthy going forward. If you have friends that you mainly partied with in the past then maybe they will not be the best group to rekindle with, but you should still try and reach out in a safe way to see if they will change their ways to remain friends with you.
While reevaluating relationships with your friends and family will be awkward it is still necessary to talk to them as you will surely find a few people close to you that will help you grow, learn, and create a bright future.
Change Your Daily Routine
As opposed to making amends and reevaluating relationships, changing your daily routine is a tangible change that you are completely in charge of. You have already made the tough choice and started the process of changing your daily routine by going sober. Your next step is to develop healthy habits and work on finding new hobbies to take up time that you used to use to feed your addiction.
Switching up your diet, working to exercise more, and finding new hobbies are all great places to start on your journey to a new daily routine. Just remember that change takes time, you won’t like your new diet right away, exercising will be frustrating for a while, and you may not like that painting class you signed up for, but you can rest easy knowing you are working towards a brighter future.
Find A New Sense Of Purpose
Finding a new sense of purpose is by far the most abstract and difficult aspect of creating a new future. Looking for a sense of purpose is realistically almost never finished, which is a good thing!
Your first sense of purpose after sobriety may be something short term like rekindling a relationship, after that you may be completely hooked on a hobby and want to take that as far as you can. Regardless of how often your sense of purpose changes just remember that you are making strides just by pursuing anything and everything new.
Learn From your Past
Your life in sobriety will rarely be a straight line, like everyone’s life you will experience ups and downs, the key is to keep moving forward. Never get too high with the highs nor too low with the lows.
Focusing on learning from your past and addressing problems as they come up is a great way to ensure that you continue on a trajectory towards a bright future. All of the above ideas will help you continue to move forward throughout life.
Resting easy because you have forgiven yourself, becoming healthier mentally and physically, and pursuing new purposes will all ensure that you grow, learn, and continue to make your future brighter.
