5 Tools For a Recovery Toolbox You Can Use Everyday

Recovery is a choice, a commitment, a discovery, and a lifestyle. Each day you will learn more about yourself and your personal program of recovery. As you start to define how your life in recovery will look, here are five tools you can use in your toolbox every day.

1. Name your daily essentials and use them, daily: What are the things you need as a human being everyday? What are the things you personally need every day? In the beginning of recovery, it can be difficult for addicts and alcoholics to define their needs. For many years, all they needed were more drugs and alcohol. Now that substances are no longer the picture, they can realize that lifestyle isn’t sustainable. It’s important to meet the daily needs of life like eating food, drinking water, and getting sleep. Those are the bare essentials every human being needs. After meeting essential needs, there are more personal needs to be met which you will have to define for yourself. As you continue to recover you will notice more and more what you need. We will discuss some more here.
2. Spiritual Activities: Spirituality can become a major part of recovery and of life for many people. The twelve step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous run on spiritual principles and advocate a spiritual experience. Spiritually based, but scientifically backed practices like yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and breathing exercises can all become important as well. You might discover that a day without your spiritual practices doesn’t feel like a normal day. Getting into a daily routine of meditation or mindfulness can be a challenge. Breathing, however, is something you have to do every day to survive. By making focusing on your breathing a priority, you can bring in more attention to meditation, mindfulness, yoga or any other spiritual activity you discover.
3. Getting Outside: Stepping into the sunshine and the fresh air is more essential than people realize to their wellness. Human beings were made to roam the earth, through all elements. Getting outside is part of our genetic makeup. Perhaps all you need for your recovery toolbox is a quick step out the door for a deep breath before burrowing back inside. Or, you might find that you need to spend at least an hour outside, walking, exercising, or gardening. Spending time outdoors is proven to enhance your feelings of wellness psychologically as well as physically.
4. Connecting With Others: Making phone calls to friends, family, peers in recovery, a sponsor, or a newcomer in need of support is part of many people’s recovery toolbox. Connection is an antidote to addiction.
5. Connecting With Yourself: Everything you do as part of your recovery toolbox will be helpful in connecting you with yourself. There are other ways to spend quality time with yourself that is just for you. You might find your best alone time while exercising, cooking, cleaning, taking a shower, doing something creative, or another activity. Making time for yourself is important because you’re the longest relationship you will ever have.

Enlightened Recovery Solutions offers partial care programs for addiction, alcoholism, and dual diagnosis issues to men and women seeking transformative healing. Our integrative approach to treatment brings together the best of clinical therapy, holistic treatment, and twelve step philosophy. For information, call us today at 833-801-5483.