Understanding Alcohol Addiction and Substance Abuse
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In recent years, alcohol abuse and addiction have come to be considered chronic diseases, due to the way that alcohol abuse changes the chemical structure of the brain. Drinking alcohol releases the chemical dopamine into the brain, producing feelings of euphoria and relaxation. Regular drinking can lead to alcohol use disorders, as you may already know. Sober blogs arrive to help those seeking relief and support in quitting or even reducing their alcohol consumption.
Many people who have become addicted to alcohol notice that they no longer feel pleasure from doing things that they once enjoyed without drinking. This, in turn, may lead to a destructive cycle of continuous alcohol abuse.
Keep reading to learn more about living sober, the challenges of recovery from alcohol and drug use, and a whole array of blog resources that can help you along the way!
Resisting Temptation During Early Sobriety
Drinking regularly means and especially having a dependence on alcohol means that your brain is releasing dopamine faster and in larger quantities than it normally would on its own. Thus, the more you drink, the more dopamine is flooding your system.
When continuously using excessive quantities of alcohol over long periods of time, your brain can become incapable of producing this chemical without it.
If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol abuse or addiction, there are ways for you to manage these habits. While it is not recommended for anyone to suddenly quit alcohol on their own, there are several ways that you can start overcoming this problem, including:
- Developing a Drinking Goal. If you have less severe alcohol addictions or do not consider yourself to be addicted, but still want to manage your drinking, it is important to develop a goal for this, such as only having one or two drinks per week.
- Build a Support System. Having a support system is important for maintaining your goals. This may include trusted family members and friends who can support you and help you stay accountable for your goals in limiting or stopping your alcohol use.
- Find New Hobbies. Alcohol can easily become a coping mechanism for boredom. This means finding new enjoyable activities to spend your time doing can be a huge help when quitting alcohol and distract you from any urges you may have to drink.
- Change Up Your Routine. It may be that you have a habit of drinking at certain times of the day, it may be a good idea to switch up your routine/ This may include finding new places to spend time with friends, or cooking from home more often.
- Change Your Environment. It can be difficult to practice sober living habits if your environment does not support the lifestyle changes you are trying to make. This means it is important to remove all alcohol and potential triggers from your environment to help you more easily stop drinking alcohol.
- Practice Self-Care. Quitting alcohol can be difficult and stressful. One of the most important things you can do to ease this process is to practice self care. This may include yoga, meditation, breathing techniques, and other methods of relaxation.
- Remember Your Why. During recovery, you may run into various obstacles, triggers, and temptations at every turn, and even have to deal with unsupportive people unable to understand your reasons for wanting to stop drinking. Remembering your why for quitting alcohol can keep you on track with and dedicated to your goals.
- Keep a Journal. Keeping a log of your thoughts, feelings, and daily activities can be a great way of tracking your progress and helping to give you a reminder of how far you have come in your recovery journey. Things written can also stick with us, long after rehab and treatmen end, and server as a reminder of the struggles with booze that are no longer a part of daily life.
Top Recommended Sober Blogs:
The alcohol addiction recovery journey can be a difficult and often lonely experience for many people. Fortunately, there are many people out there experiencing the same journey and hardships. Many of them record these difficulties and share them to help others.
Listed below is a compilation of the top ten sober blogs we have found on the web today. While there are countless blogs and sober spokespeople that you can look to for support during your recovery journey, here are some of our favorites:
1. Sober Courage
Sober Courage is a blog created and maintained by Magz Shores and is dedicated to highlighting how she went from believing that alcohol gave her liquid courage, to realize that the journey to her own sobriety was the true source of her strength.
In her blogs, Magz provides a variety of tips and resources for getting and living sober. She also provides a series of real-life experiences and stories on dealing with alcohol addiction and recovery.
Her writing is dedicated to helping other people learn how to stay sober and maintain their sobriety, even when dealing with difficult events, times, and relationships.
She also hosts a thread called “Friday Night Pep-Talks,” which is meant to help people get through what Magz feels is one of the hardest parts of the week: Friday nights in recovery. Because she believes these nights are some of the loneliest to get through in early sobriety, she strives to help others through them.
2. A Sober Girl’s Guide Blog
Created by Jessica Jeboult after experiencing her own struggles with getting sober, this blog is dedicated to helping others reclaim their power and remove booze from their lives. Jessica focuses on highlighting both the physical and emotional hardships that come with recovery.
As a recovered alcoholic herself, her blog uses both her personal experience with addiction and her background in psychology to provide expert counsel and support to those struggling with alcohol abuse with both their physical and mental health. Her mission is to present a well-written blog that speaks to the recovering community and offers women (and everyone else) a lifeline to a sober world.
3. Liv’s Recovery Kitchen
Liv’s Recovery Kitchen is a great resource dedicated to providing people who are in the process of or have already stopped drinking with the tools and resources they need to have a successful recovery process.
In particular, LRK aims to reduce the negative stigma surrounding addiction to drugs and alcohol and help fix the relationship between addiction and recovery.
This sober blog does this by supporting those in recovery; with exclusive interviews from people who are and have recovered from alcoholism about their sobriety journey and collections of real-life stories about alcohol-free living.
4. Unpickled
Unpickled is a blog written by Jean McCarthy about how she “secretly quit my secret habit of secretly drinking.” This blog is an incredibly raw insight into Jean’s mission to recover from alcoholism, and the many years she has spent getting and staying sober.
Jean states that the main purpose of starting the blog was to keep herself accountable for her new sober lifestyle, but in time became a way to support and inspire others in their own sobriety journeys with her words. She’s been successful in this goal and speaks to women across a large swath of the sober community with her writing.
5. Off-Dry
Starting anonymously in 2013, Off-Dry was created as a way for Kristi Coulter during the first few weeks of her sobriety as a way to write about and reflect on her journey. Since getting sober, Kristi has become widely successful and aims to inspire others to take hold of their own lives.
Her articles and words are highly personal and read like a story, reflecting on her experience with living sober and remaining dedicated to her decision to stop drinking alcohol and start getting sober. If you are looking to see the hope of life after alcohol from a great writer, this blog may be the right fit for you.
6. Klen&Sobr
Alongside friends Jeff and Matt, Chris Aguirre has created a massive community of people in recovery from alcoholism. Their blog about getting sober also offers a revolutionary source for educational and cultural resources, breaking news, and investigative reports on addiction and recovery.
The Klen&Sober blog offers insightful and reflective stories, podcasts, artwork, comics and more on mental health, addiction recovery, and sober living. There are a multitude of informational guest posts, as well as voices, artists, and writers from the recovery & sobriety world.
7. Life To Be Continued
Beth Leipholtz, the creator of Life To Be Continued, serves as a testament that addiction can affect people at any age. Becoming sober at the young age of 20, Beth writes about her sober experience, the pitfalls she’s experienced, and her own methods of avoiding relapse.
She also documents her experiences with dating while sober, how she avoids relapse, her experience in dating while sober, and ultimately moving through adulthood.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction at a young age, this blog could be a great way of finding support for your sobriety and understanding with your own personal experiences getting sober.
8. The Sober Señorita
Kelly Junco, AKA The Sober Senorita, is a blog writer that talks about her journey to becoming “a reformed party girl.” She mainly advocates for other women in sobriety, including sober mommies, and promotes the idea that “sobriety is self-love.”
Her articles offer a personal and helpful perspective to sobriety, as well as a variety of useful tips on living a sober life. Her articles are written in a fun and humorous style, making them easy to relate to and highly absorbable.
9. SobrieTea Party
SobrieTea Party is a one-of-a-kind blog that focuses on helping people quit drinking and re-establish a sense of normality with sober living. They encourage active involvement from their readers and supporters, accepting external contributions and stories on their blog.
Their website also promotes sober events and fun activities, as well as provides a list of recovery tools and resources, including a sober dating app to help connect those who have overcome addiction in re-establishing their romantic lives.
10. This Naked Mind
Annie Grace wrote both the novel and her blog, This Naked Mind, to highlight a new approach to overcoming alcoholism called Liminal thinking. This process is designed to help you recognize the way you construct and change your beliefs in order to become free from alcohol.
Rather than focusing solely on quitting drinking, Annie’s method focuses on helping you remove the desire to drink entirely. This is meant to help you lead an alcohol-free life of freedom and joy, sobriety, and to find a community of people with similar experiences and sober goals.
Other Online Recovery Resources for Overcoming Alcohol Addiction
In addition to the various blogs, websites, and online platforms dedicated to spreading awareness and support for alcohol addiction recovery, there are also online chat services that can help those in recovery as well.
One example of these services is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) chats. This platform is designed to help to recover individuals access AA resources and speak with other people in recovery through an entirely online format.
The AA chat rooms provide a safe and supportive space for both AA members and anyone with a history of alcoholism to connect with and support each other. This is a highly inclusive tool to get sober, open to anyone looking to quit drinking, even if they are not actively AA members.
The Alcoholics Anonymous organization itself also has several virtual and telephone meeting options available in the event that you have limited transportation methods, or if you simply do not wish to attend one of their meetings in person.
Aside from 12-step-based programs, there is a world of other options out there as well. From Refuge Recovery to SMART, to LifeRing and others, sober support to match your life and needs can be found!
Find Sober Courage & Reach for a Sober Life Now!
If you or someone you know is struggling with alcohol addiction, this can be an incredibly painful and isolating situation to deal with. However, you are not alone, and help IS available. At Rehabs Of Armerica, our hotline is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
We can get you connected with an addiction treatment program, as well as various recovery tools and resources, anytime you need them. So don’t wait and call today, so we can help you get started on your journey to becoming happier, healthier, and alcohol-free!
Eric R. hails from Maine and does extensive work in the field of behavioral health as both a professional writer and passionate advocate for those suffering. From his own personal encounters with mental illness, he speaks to those seeking healthy relief from depression and anxiety and embraces wellness both personally and professionally. After losing friends and family to the darkness of suicide, Eric aims to educate and inform about the nature of treatment and render it accessible for all those seeking a way out of darkness and despair.
