Life Shows Up in Sobriety

Preparing for Roadblocks that Come Up in Recovery

There can sometimes be a huge misconception about sobriety that many newly recovering addicts and alcoholics may be bummed to learn about. Interested? The saying that, “you will live a life beyond your wildest dreams” doesn’t happen overnight, and it isn’t referring to being rich and famous.

In fact, another saying from the rooms, “life shows up in sobriety,” also holds true, and prepares us for the work and obstacles that will eventually arise in recovery. Keep reading to get the details on how to overcome any and all roadblocks to getting sober that life throws at you!

Myths: Sobriety is Easy for Us

It’s easy for us, in the beginning, to think that simply because we stop getting high or drinking for 3 days or 3 months that the world should owe us something. We tend to think that a job should now fall into our lap and our families should be eager to talk to us again as if the years and years of pain we caused are washed away because we stopped using for a period of time. We want our jobs to forgive us or our significant other to take us back. The courts should let us off easy for the home invasion we committed and consistent drug possession charges.

Reality: Getting Sober is Just the Launch Point

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the world we imagine in our minds doesn’t fall into our laps once we decide to get sober. Getting sober is simply the start. Real life is going to show up, and first, we must learn how to live without drugs and alcohol.

I personally made several efforts to get sober and something that kept taking me back out was running into normal, everyday life problems. Not getting the job or pay that I thought I deserved, the object of my desires still wasn’t responding to my texts, my family still wouldn’t answer my phone calls, etc. So off I went, taking my will back, proclaiming that the world is horrible and out to get me, and eventually, I would use or drink again.

Every relapse I faced, I dug myself into still deeper holes. The real issue was that I wasn’t putting in any work to achieve the things I wanted. I wasn’t working on myself. I wasn’t helping others. When I got sober this time around (the longest I’ve ever had) the relationship I was in with “the person of my dreams” ended in my first week of sobriety. My family wouldn’t answer my calls, I worked a job making less than $200 a week and lived in a notoriously horrible halfway house because it was all I could afford.

I wouldn’t say I was living a life beyond my wildest dreams, but getting high wasn’t going to make any of those things change. Being the good little addict and alcoholic that I was, the first thing I wanted to do when life wasn’t going my way, was to go back to what I knew was comfortable.

Why Guilt in Sobriety Can Harm You

Before we discuss the specific ways a person can manage guilt in sobriety, we should review the specific effects of self-reproach on one’s recovery. This is a very powerful and highly motivating feeling. When a person is experiencing immense guilt for their actions during active addiction, he or she will naturally be more inclined and more willing to find ways of alleviating those kinds of feelings.

Since an addict develops a habit of alleviating any negative feelings they might experience in life with alcohol or drug abuse, experiencing these intense emotions in recovery could cause people who are still new to sobriety to relapse. As such, it’s incredibly important to know how to assess and address these feelings.

5 Ways to Manage Guilt in Sobriety

1. Work the Steps of Sobriety
   

One of the best ways to manage guilt in sobriety is by working the 12 Steps. Although this is not for everyone, if life shows up in sobriety and you are a 12-step adherent, it can offer a fellowship of support and wisdom. This will not only allow you to deal directly with the guilt that you may be experiencing, but it will also give you an outlet for any unwanted guilt you may still be carrying around.

Working the Steps can allow you to address your guilt, and it will also give you the mental boost you need in order to manage guilt in sobriety because you know that you are working towards becoming a sober-minded individual.

2. Identify the Origins of Your Guilt

When experiencing feelings of culpability, the first and, arguably, the most important thing you need to do is determine what is making you feel that way. In other words, you must identify the specific behavior you exhibited previously that is presently causing you to feel as though your actions are so worthy of reproach. Some of the most remorseful and shame-inducing behaviors are those that bring some type of harm to other people, particularly our loved ones.

Therefore, this is a good place to start, looking back on previous interactions with family members and friends over the course of active addiction. After identifying the source of shame, you are in a much better position to be able to address and overcome it.

3. Recognize That You’re Not the Same Person in Sobriety
   

Addiction is a disease that turns even the most good-hearted, good-natured people into mere shadows of their former selves. It all but strips people of all their virtues and renders them slaves to alcohol and drugs. After becoming addicted, substance abuse is the primary motivator in one’s life, like the center of a person’s universe.

Alcoholics and addicts become willing to do basically anything and everything that they need to do in order to sustain their substance abuse problems. Once sober, it is important to understand that you are not the same person who was out there using. Understanding this is a great way to help manage guilt in sobriety because you can deal with the guilt you are feeling from an objective and not an emotional point of view.

4. Make Amends

An integral part of the 12 Steps is to take an inventory of any actions that you have committed against others over the course of your addiction, and then make amends whenever and wherever possible. Perhaps the best thing about making amends is that it makes it allows you to manage guilt in sobriety by giving you the opportunity to go back and talk to the people whom you have wronged.

Many times our guilt in sobriety is centered on the things that we have done to others, but going to them in the spirit of the amends allows you to a) see that many people do not feel as poorly about you as you feel about yourself and b) lets you make things right with those you have harmed. Furthermore, once you’re experiencing much less guilt in sobriety over any wrongs you’ve committed against others, it will be much easier to forgive yourself, which is another crucial step in managing feelings of remorse and shame.

5. Give Yourself a Break

Another great way to manage guilt in sobriety when life shows up in sobriety is by giving yourself a break. Often times we are entirely too hard on ourselves and the result of this is an overabundance of guilt for real and imagine transgressions we have done. It is important to remember that you are human and you are doing the best you can, so give yourself a break and take a break from the guilt for a while.

Our Keys for When Life Shows Up in Sobriety

The key for me to stay sober was to listen to the people who had gone through the same trials and tribulations before me. Instead of trying to run my own life, I listened for once. I got serious and started doing step work with another alcoholic. I had no expectations other than knowing that I wanted my life to improve and I believed that what other people were telling me was true. I did constant footwork day in and day out to maintain my sobriety.

As the people before me had promised, in sobriety my life began to improve. Within a matter of months, I was able to get an apartment and work a job I enjoyed. Many months later, I was even able to get a dog and take care of it.

But the world still didn’t always work out the way I had planned it in my head. There will always be troubles in your work area, relationships, with your family, finances, and even within yourself. At a point in my sobriety, with almost a year sober, I was in the process of moving, and the apartment I was supposed to move into went belly up.

When Life Shows Up in Sobriety: Pushing Forward in the Face of Adversity

At a year sober, I found myself homeless with nowhere to live. At this point, I could have cursed the people who said things would improve in my life and I could have stopped doing the things I had been doing for so long that had kept me sober. But my thinking went in a different direction. Instead of writing off the program of recovery and the 12 steps, I helped other alcoholics even more. I was able to share my story with others about how I got clean and sober, and life still shows up. In the meantime, I was able to crash on couches of sober support, the fellowship kept me safe.

Listen, bad things still happen, but we can and will get through anything that comes our way because of the 12 steps. See, one thing you do almost immediately in the 12 steps is to give up your will to a power greater than yourself (Step 3). The way my life had been working out on my own will was leading me nowhere. I was always a firm believer that things happen for a reason and my higher power has a bigger plan for me. Sometimes I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m not sure where the road may be taking me, but I trust that wherever it may be going, it’s right.

Whether in AA or Elsewhere: Embracing Mindfulness in Recovery

Step 11 says “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” We as alcoholics must constantly be trying to grow closer to our higher power. We must always remain in contact with Him and let Him pave our path.

Not only did I have a higher power to trust in and pray to in rough times, but I also had real friends within the program that cared about my well-being. Friends that I could go to for help and they would answer the phone at all hours. Within the steps, we learn to not let our fears control our lives.

We embrace change and embrace the uncomfortability of the unknown.

We live in the present and let our higher power run the show.

Life shows up in sobriety. We know this to be true. Friends pass away. Relationships end. Financial hardships happen. Things will always and forever be subject to change. In my time in the program, I have come to understand what people meant when they say “life beyond your wildest dreams.” It’s not a house on the beach or having a brand-new Maserati. It’s nothing material at all.

My understanding of life beyond my wildest dreams was the peace and serenity I received from my program. The ability to “deal with life on life’s terms.” Life shows up in sobriety and times will get tough. But now we are just armed with the tools we need in order to face it.

Freedom From Addiction: Found Here

If you have found yourself suffering in addiction, or have relapsed in recovery, you are not alone! If you are ready to change your life and live free of substances, then Rehabs Of Armerica can help. We give you a jump start to recovery by matching your needs with addiction treatment providers across the country, and giving you options covered by your insurance carrier, or offering resources and assistance if you are without insurance.

All calls to our helpline are strictly confidential, and we can provide options nationwide, often within minutes. If you’ve hit a roadblock and need help to get back on a path of recovery, reach out now, help is here!

Charles F.( Content Coordinator )

Charles F. has been an active part of the Florida recovery community for over 5 years. He began as a behavioral health technician at an addiction treatment facility in Ocala, Florida and has since begun training as a Licensed Addiction and Chemical Dependency counselor in Boca Raton. Charles’ passion involves the promotion of recovery and helping spread the hope of recovery to as many readers as possible!