How Social Relationships Influence Substance Use Disorder Recovery: A Collaborative Narrative Study PMC

Remember, recovery is an exciting journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Developing healthy relationships with others, yourself, and the God of your understanding is a process. When a person is in recovery, it is important that they separate themselves from people in their lives who do not support their sobriety or cause them to experience negativity or stress.

We have friends who offer their companionship, support, and encouragement. And, we have professional relationships with colleagues and co-workers. Since everyone knows that in reality, it’s hard to fix a relationship, remember that some friends might not warm immediately to the idea of having you back in their life. They might only know the old you, the person living with addiction.

How Can You Form Healthy Relationships in Recovery?

The things people seek out in a relationship—need fulfillment, emotional stability, security—are things that are important to find in yourself. Instead of seeking satisfaction from others, your time in treatment and recovery will help you https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/should-you-have-relationships-in-recovery/ be able to find that satisfaction within yourself. Rather than putting your energy into dating in early recovery, focus on improving your physical health and emotional well-being to build a solid foundation for continuing recovery.

Do not put a relationship or another person above your goal of staying sober. There are strong, healthy relationships that make us feel happy and at home. Then there are the toxic ones, full of heartbreak and transgression. Often, relationships fall somewhere in between, with both ups and downs, highs and lows. When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you are more likely to have healthy relationships with other people.

Positive Communication

Those relationships that fostered addiction may need to be left behind entirely. If you are not strong and stable emotionally and in your recovery, the wrong relationship at the wrong time can sabotage your efforts and jeopardize everything you have worked so hard to achieve. Our alumni program could help you through these challenges during addiction recovery. An effective treatment program explores the unhealthy and healthy aspects of their clients’ relationships, ideally with the participation of affected family members, so the whole family can heal.

This pattern is also used to hide the addiction (or its extent) from others to keep it going. If your goal is to rebuild an existing relationship, to move forward, you’ll need to recognize how you hurt the person when you were using drugs or alcohol. It’s helpful to keep the focus on yourself and your sobriety goals at the beginning of recovery—before exploring the dating world again.

TIPS FOR RECOVERING ADDICTS TO REBUILD RELATIONSHIPS

Cultivating a healthy relationship with yourself is an ongoing, lifelong process – but is the greatest investment you can make. An addiction to alcohol or drugs like heroin, crystal meth, or prescription painkillers leads to a dysfunctional relationship with yourself. In active addiction, you are unkind to yourself, you abuse your body, and you do things you are not proud of. Now, let’s identify a few of the characteristics of a toxic relationship. The key to a happy life is not just to have relationships, but to have HEALTHY relationships.

At first, I didn’t believe him and thought he seemed like a less intelligent man. But after a while, I said to myself, “If this guy could do it, I can too.” So, after a while, I understood that he was exactly what I needed. I started working the 12 steps and did services during the AA meetings. There was a gap that had to be filled, and I filled it with AA meetings and working the steps. I admit I have very little respect for ways of treatment other than the Minnesota model. The inclusion criterion was stable recovery for at least 5 years.