Most people who enter recovery will have periods when there is a strong temptation to relapse. The memory of the pain of addiction begins to fade over time, and the person just forgets how bad it all was. A period away from alcohol or drugs could mean feeling healthy, strong, and confident, so one may begin to wonder if maybe they could control their substance abuse next time. This thinking has led countless individuals back into the world of addiction; in too many cases, meaning the person lost his or her last chance at sobriety.
When the doubts about recovery start to manifest, you will need more than just fear to keep you on track. Unless you have a convincing motivation for staying away from alcohol or drugs, your chance of relapse will be high. Here we have listed just 12 reasons to get you started:
1. You Will Never Reach Your Potential While You Are Addicted
Your level of happiness and self-worth is, in a large part, determined by your personal development. It is as if people have a need to be the best they can possible be and, when they are not moving towards this goal, life feels meaningless and unsatisfactory. You have a lot of potential locked up inside you, but it will not be possible to release this while still abusing alcohol or drugs.
2. Sobriety Means More Opportunities in Life
The fact that you are sober means that doors will be open to you that would otherwise not be if you were still drinking or using drugs. Amazing things happen to those who embrace sobriety, and there are likely to be incredible things in your future too – you never know what’s around the corner. Even if you are having a tough time of it now, it will not be like this forever. If you can have a bit of faith, you will find that the sober path contains plenty of wonderful experiences in the future.
3. Every Sober Day is a Day When you are Truly Alive
When you are caught up in addiction, it means you are experiencing things through a cloud of chemicals. It is as if you are walking through life half-asleep. This time on the planet is precious, and every day you lose to addiction is a day wasted. There are going to be tough days in sobriety as well as the good, but being there for them all is what life is all about.
4. Sober Living Means Less Remorse
Even though you are sober, you will still sometimes do things that upset others. The reality is that these mistakes are going to happen far less frequently than they would if you were back in the midst of addiction. Intoxication reduces your ability to make good decisions, meaning that you are regularly doing things that hurt others – you will only ever notice a tiny fraction of these hurts. By committing to the sober path, you will be hurting people less and your ability to be a good friend, father, husband, mother, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or work colleague will improve over time.
5. Sober Living Means Deeper Relationships
One of the greatest joys in life is the connection people make to one another. Addiction is all about self-obsession, so you are more likely to treat other people as a ‘means to an end’. In order to support this habit, you will likely need to be dishonest, manipulative, and generally toxic. By staying sober, you can work on your relationships so you start to experience the real joy of deep connections with other people.
6. You Can Achieve Your Childhood Dreams in Sobriety
One of the negative effects of being caught up in addiction is that it steals your dreams. When your life revolves around getting drunk or high, there is not much room for anything else. When you are sober, you not only start to reconnect with your childhood dreams but you also discover new ambitious. These goals can give your life structure and lead to great personal satisfaction. The skills you develop while building your sober life can also be incredibly effective when it comes to achieving your goals.
7. You Are Going to Die Too Soon
Life is too short. Even if you live to be a hundred, it is all going to be over in a blink of an eye. Can you afford to be wasting your life on alcohol or drugs? Maybe you have a religious or philosophical view that explains what human life is all about, but the one thing that most people can agree on is that life is meant to be experienced. It is highly doubtful that you are going to reach the end of your life and regret the fact that you stayed free of alcohol or drugs – the opposite is more likely to be the case.
8. Relapse Means a Return to Inner Discomfort
Even during the depths of your denial, there will have been a part of you that realised that what you were doing was wrong. This sense of wrongness can be similar to an alarm bell going off in your head, and there is no real way to get away from it.
9. Addiction Is Worse After a Period of Sobriety
In Alcoholics Anonymous there is a saying – ‘a head full of AA and a belly full of beer don’t mix’. The fact that you have experienced a life free of the suffering of addiction means it can feel much harder to deal with when you go back to it. Maybe you will try to make the best of things, but the fact that you now know better from experience means you will never be able to forget how much you are losing by being caught back up in addiction.
10. Your Career Will Likely Be Better In Sobriety
You will almost certainly perform much better in your career if you remain sober. People can get a great deal of satisfaction from work, but if you are caught up in addiction, you will be underperforming.
11. Staying Sober is better for Your Physical and Mental Health
Staying sober not only means that you will live longer; it will also mean that you will have better physical and mental health while you are alive. This allows you to get more out of your life, and you will not be exacerbating the symptoms of any condition. Substance abuse is linked with many diseases, and a relapse is almost certainly going to have a negative impact on your health.
12. Relapse Could Mean Losing Your Last Chance for a Better Life
You will likely have put a great deal of effort into building a new sober life. It is not easy what you have done so far. Do you really want to throw it all that way? This could be your last chance of a life free of addiction. Deep down, you already know what is waiting for you if you return to addiction; is it not better to stay on the sober path to see where this amazing journey can take you?
