Getting treatment for substance abuse or co-occurring mental health disorders takes a great deal of courage. Finishing your program takes commitment and strength. However, when a program ends, you still have a lifelong journey of sobriety ahead of you.
Importance of a Strong Foundation for Sobriety
The foundation you create during recovery will help you avoid a relapse, tackle spontaneous cravings or triggers, and deal with stress as it arises.
With a strong foundation, you will have the tools to control your relationship to stress and hardships as things change. A stronger foundation helps you tackle moments when you might feel weak, when you are tempted, or when you are stressed.
Self-Awareness as a Foundation for Long-Term Recovery
Part of building your recovery foundation involves working on your self-awareness. Many of the skills you develop in treatment or the holistic therapies in which you participate, such as yoga, meditation, or 12-step programs, help you turn your attention inward.
Therapy gives you an opportunity to acknowledge personal strengths and weaknesses, reassess your character, and make changes to your values.
Journaling
One useful method for maintaining self-awareness is keeping a journal. Journaling can give you a chance to monitor the progress you’ve made over time. Journaling helps you review techniques that may have worked in the past when faced with triggers or unnecessary stress. It can also help you better identify your emotions by putting them on paper and recognizing them for what they are.
Self-Care Practices
Self-care practices can also help you improve your self-awareness. Activities like journaling fall under the umbrella of self-care practices, but there are several other elements you can focus on.
For example:
- Building a routine is a very important part of self-care. This is something that you learn to do in recovery by participating in a structured routine. Routines help you build structure into your life and help you be aware of what’s coming next so you aren’t left with free time when you are bored, lonely, or stressed. Building routines also frees up your willpower to make better decisions when you are faced with stress rather than using all your daily willpower to decide what to do in the afternoon.
- Sleep hygiene might be an important self-care practice for you, and this might involve making sure that you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
- Having a personal support system can give you someone to lean on when you need to set healthy boundaries and enforce them or when you are struggling and feeling low. This personal support system can include friends, family, and even sponsors.
Health
Self-awareness means taking time to monitor your eating habits and your exercise levels. A healthy diet, good sleep, and regular exercise all work together to improve your mental and physical well-being.
Healthy eating and exercise habits:
- Boost your mood
- Improve your willpower
- Increase motivation to stay sober
- Improve sleep
- Reduce cortisol levels
Building a Strong Foundation for Recovery with Self-Improvement
Being aware of personal characteristics such as strengths and weaknesses is only the first part of a two-part program. It’s also up to you to improve yourself on a regular basis so that you can increase your strengths and improve upon those weaknesses.
Self-improvement can include habits like:
- Being open and honest with people instead of lying
- Working on communication with family through family therapy
- Building trust with other people
- Keeping a community of sober and supportive individuals
- Attending support groups or 12-step programs
- Keeping track of goals
- Learning a new skill
- Participating in community groups
- Volunteering
Get Help with Foundational Recovery
At Ava Recovery, we offer residential inpatient and outpatient drug rehab in Texas that help you build a foundation for long-term recovery. Our facility focuses on trauma treatment in Austin, as we treat trauma as a root cause of addiction so that clients are able to improve the connection they have to themselves.
If you are struggling with recovery, your goal is to get your needs met without substance abuse. To help you with that, our luxury drug rehab in Austin meets you where you are and helps you build a foundation for sobriety based on healthy nutrition, individualized treatment, physical activity, and coping skills that you can take with you long after you leave our care.
To meet these goals, we track your quality of life after treatment, offering ongoing support and resources that give you a necessary foundational recovery.
Building a foundation for long-term recovery takes time, but with professional help, you can set yourself up for long-term success by attending support groups, avoiding isolation, turning to hobbies, and maintaining your self-care.
Let Ava Recovery help you start your journey to recovery today. Call our team to learn more about how we track quality of life after treatment.
