Recovery begins with letting go of everything that kept us addicted. We may need to make our circle smaller, letting go of people, places, and things that no longer serve our recovery. Is it easy? No. But we can’t embrace a new future when we’re holding on to a past. A past where we were sick and not thriving, let it go. Allow your circle to be very small. Only allow those people, places, and things that support your life of recovery. You will slowly build your circle of people with people that support your new life. Start with counselors, peer supports, therapists. Once you begin getting acquainted with and knowing your true, authentic self and living your new, healthier life; that circle may grow, allowing for new healthy relationships to develop.

Many of our relationships are reflections of ourselves and what we think we deserve. If we don’t love ourselves, we will allow anyone in our lives, even people that mistreat us. Toxic relationships often go hand in hand with addiction. Your counselor will help you explore your relationships, and you can decide if some of your relationships are healthy for you, or not; as well as ways that you can possibly improve your relationships with others.

Healthy people have healthy boundaries with others. Just as we are all individuals, we all have different boundaries regarding what is okay and what isn’t okay. At Pioneer, your counselor will help you look at the boundaries you have with the people in your life, and help you shore up boundaries where they might be needed, as well as how to communicate those boundaries.

If you are up for it, it might help to clean your house before you go to treatment. Once you get home, it isn’t going to be very helpful if you have bottles of alcohol stashed in your closet. Go to all your hiding spots, collect all your ‘supplies’ that kept you sick and get rid of them. Yeah, it might be embarrassing for the recycle guy to see your recycle bin, but you will be happy once you return home to a clean house. Eliminating as many temptations as possible is just healthy recovery. If you can get a head start before you leave for treatment, it will be one less obstacle for you when you get home! If you have a good friend or recovery peer that can help with this, it may be easier.

Very few of us get it perfect on the first try!! Relapses and slips are a normal part of recovery. The goal is to have longer and longer periods of abstinence and shorter relapses. As soon as we fall off, get back on! Call your recovery peer, sponsor, and ask for help! Don’t allow yourself to stay in the shame game, that never helped any of us! Shame will keep us sick, it’s important to remember how far you have come, and you can do hard things!! Relapses teach us, with every relapse, hopefully we learn something that wasn’t working, regroup, make adjustments and get back on the sobriety train! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!!! You got this!!!!