They’ll have to feel emotions again without numbing them with drink or drug and maneuver their way through tricky family and relationship dynamics. Addiction can be a way to avoid the things we don’t want to deal with. Sobriety means having to face uncomfortable truths about ourselves and others and having to stand up and be who we are. We may have to face all kinds of adversities and personal challenges while we come clean.
It’s not uncommon, then, to be afraid of what life will be like without these substances to help you to manage stress, family members and other challenges. Perhaps you’ve relapsed before, and now you’re worried it will happen again. In this situation, it’s important to be truthful with yourself. It hurts to think of what you have given up or lost for drugs and alcohol.
Stop Being Afraid to Get Sober with Northpoint Recovery
We use drugs to numb ourselves and our emotions and to push off thinking for another day. But when we no longer have those devices at our disposal, we’re left with only our minds, our willpower and our inner strength to carry us through the hard times. We’re forced to think and analyze our problems, to come up with solutions, and in doing so we may fail or make mistakes.
Finding an addiction treatment center with aftercare planning services can help you overcome your fears of long-term sobriety. If you’ve developed an identity tied closely to the drug scene, you might fear losing yourself outside that world. Losing your personal identity is a common fear in recovery.
“People will talk.”
Plus, being in recovery typically involves maintaining sobriety, so the two are somewhat intertwined. The Cabin Chiang Mai offers luxury, residential rehab for all forms of addiction. Contact us for an over-the-phone assessment to see how we can help. The risk is always there even if you have a solid plan to identify and manage your anxiety and relapse triggers.
Alternatively, you may think following a healthy lifestyle will be too challenging. The prospect of changing your habits completely can, indeed, seem quite daunting. However, addiction treatment involves support in this respect. During rehab, you can take up fitness classes, as well as engage in meditation, yoga, cooking, nutrition classes and art. By exploring healthy living during rehab, you will find it much easier to carry on with these positive habits in your regular life. Maybe you’re ready—you’re practically desperate—to get sober and to change your life.
Sobriety Fear #10: People will judge you for being sober.
What you once thought of as fun will pale in comparison to a life rich in reality, one that is completely drug and alcohol-free. Recognizing that fear is present is the first step in moving beyond it. The fear of being sober is often about dealing with your loss of a coping mechanism for “real” life. You’re afraid you don’t have the tools and resources to help you to maintain your sobriety. You are afraid that being sober will simply be too hard.
Navigating your existing relationships in sobriety is a huge challenge. The good thing is that you don’t have to worry about that in the beginning. In some cases, it’s more complicated than that. Maybe these people have been in your life since childhood, and you’ve all fallen into the same trap. You’ve got history, but you’ve also got baggage.
You’re Afraid of What Other People Will Think.
If a booked social calendar is important to you, you’ll find ways to be proactive and realign what you do to fit your new lifestyle. The truth is, you have no idea what success will look or feel like. Spending mental energy on things you cannot possibly know is useless. Every time you (or I) do that, we choose to suffer.
However, it’s important to remember that sobriety is not something to be afraid of. Sobriety is an opportunity to improve your life in many different ways. Many people struggling with addiction want to get sober, but fear of being sober share common fears about what sobriety entails. Let us take this opportunity to refute these fears and show you why getting sober is better than you realised. If you haven’t felt what sobriety feels like, you can.