But what about long term sobriety? What about people how have struggled through their first few months or the first few years of recovery and are not dealing with “the rest of their life” while clean and sober? Is it all smooth sailing for them? Do these people ever relapse?

You bet they do. In fact, the rate of relapse remains at a very scary level, regardless of how long people have been clean. Now this is not to say that no one ever enjoys long term recovery, because they definitely do. But realize that long term recovery can be a struggle too, and many will eventually relapse, even after years of clean time.

Why do people relapse? The main culprit is a little phenomenon called complacency. This is when people get lazy and start taking it easy when it comes to personal growth in their lives. It can creep up on people and it can even creep up on people who are still going to meetings every single day. Just because you are participating in a 12 step fellowship and getting addiction help from therapy does not make you immune to relapse. You can still become complacent with a daily meeting routine.

So what is the solution? How can we live in long term recovery so as not to fall victim to complacency and ultimately relapse? The answer is hard to swallow but very simple:

Action.

It is all about action, I’m afraid. If you stop taking action in your life, then you run the risk of relapse. If you stop reaching out and helping others to recover, then you run the risk of relapse. If you don’t take any positive action in your life when it comes to positive growth, spiritual development, self exploration, meditation, exercise, fitness, nutrition, emotional balance, building self esteem, or just generally doing good things for your life and for your health, then yes, you run the risk of relapse.

Take, for example, a recovering heroin addict who is fresh out of heroin treatment. What good is it to them if they just go back to the same environment, try not use drugs, and hit a few meetings here and there? They will be back at it in no time. We need action. We need life changes.

Take positive action every day and your recovery will be that much stronger. Make habits that challenge you to grow and learn and help others. This is the key to long term recovery.

Push yourself every day, and you have no need to fear relapse.

Early recovery starts out a little bit before you even get clean and sober. You’re in the process of making the decision to change your life. Then you actually go through with the decision and take real action. This launches you into a roller coaster of an emotional ride that we can only describe as being a wild, up and down ride. Early recovery is like that. Your emotions are all over the place, because you are finally feeling them again (seemingly for the first time), and you are basically in shock from simply being sober.

Many people will spend this first part of their early recovery in a treatment center, and that is a fairly good idea for a number of reasons. For one thing, you will definitely benefit from having a safe environment with which to take your first steps towards a life of sobriety, without being tempted to relapse right away. Second of all, treatment can be helpful because you will receive a lot of addiction help from all of the peer support that you will get while in rehab. You will also benefit from the counselors and therapists there who can help to educate you about recovery and help guide you towards a new way to live. Early recovery is all about absorbing new information, and so you need to have teachers who can guide you in this early stage.

Long term recovery

Now contrast this early stage with long term recovery. In long term sobriety, you are no longer depending on your peer support group to keep you clean and sober like you were in the early stages. At this point you have probably learned quite a bit, you have a few years (or more) of clean time under your belt, and in fact you are probably actively helping other newcomers in recovery in some way. This being the case, what you have to do in order to stay clean at this point is not the same things that you were doing in early recovery.

The fact is that you have to change, grow, and progress as you grow personally in recovery. Anything less than this and you risk sliding back towards your old habits.

The real fact of the matter is that complacency is your biggest obstacle in long term recovery, so you have to take deliberate action on a consistent basis in order to keep growing. This means you need to form healthy habits that utilize sound recovery strategies, such as caring for self, helping others, and pushing yourself to grow in new ways.

Photo by Neil Cowburn

Finding success in long term sobriety is all about the transition.

What does this mean? Well, anyone can get a few days sober. Stick them in a treatment center, and anyone can dry out for a week or two. This is nothing miraculous in and of itself.

But some people who get sober this way actually go on to enjoy a full life in long term sobriety.

Many will fail. Many will relapse. But a select few actually make it to long term sobriety. So the question becomes: “How do they make this transition?”

So today we are going to take a careful look at this transition period in the hopes of learning what is important and what is not in achieving long term sobriety.

Early recovery and the need for transition

Why do we need to transition at all to long term recovery? There is a real need to do so because of the growth curve in recovery and the need to overcome complacency. What happens in a lot of cases is that people in early recovery will fall into a pattern with their recovery program. This will generally consist of going to 12 step meetings and maybe doing a bit of work with a sponsor.

Now this is great for early recovery and doing these types of things can help people to stay clean in the beginning. But here is the tricky part that so many people miss: what got you clean and sober will not keep you clean and sober. The things you are doing at 30 days sober are not going to cut it at 3 years sober and they definitely will not cut it at 10 years sober. Why not?

Because we have to grow and change in our recovery. This is a process just like anything else. A learning process at that. Would it do you any good to simply repeat the first grade over and over again for 12 years? Of course not. But this is the strategy that most people use who make daily 12 step meetings into their recovery solution.

The real solution to a life of growth and sobriety lies beyond that. It is bigger than that. It is a life of purpose and growth and in order to get there you have to transition out of these early recovery tactics and start using some long term strategies for growth and development.

People who do not make this transition either relapse or simply stay stuck in a very “first grade,” surface-level type of recovery that is not very fulfilling.

Growth strategies for facilitating the transition

So what are these long term growth strategies to help you make the transition? Here are the concepts that facilitated my transition into long term recovery and continue to guide me today:

1) Caring for self

2) Networking with others

3) Holistic growth

Let’s take a closer look at these fundamental strategies:

Caring for self

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this idea is too simple to be helpful. As addicts and alcoholics, we need to learn how to care for ourselves all over again in recovery. This is a huge task that goes beyond our physical health. We have to relearn how to take care of our whole self.

Of course this is closely tied to self esteem as well, which is one of the biggest keys to recovery. We have to care about ourselves if we are going to have a shot at achieving meaningful recovery. If we do not care about ourselves then it will be much easier to give in to temptation when it inevitably arises and relapse will happen.

So how do we generate and build self esteem? How do we care about ourselves? One way to work towards this goal is to simply start caring for yourself. In other words, force yourself to take good care of yourself, and self esteem will follow. This can be realized on a very small scale as well: if you force yourself to take a shower, get cleaned up, eat some breakfast, and so on, you’ll start feeling better. Is this strictly health related? No, it goes beyond that. You are building self esteem because you are caring for yourself.  Addiction help starts at the level of personal care.

This strategy starts out in early recovery when we make the decision to stop polluting our bodies with drugs and alcohol. But later on it is still vitally important as it can motivate us to exercise, quit smoking, and follow other paths that lead to greater health and well being for us.

Networking with others

This is especially important in early recovery and in fact many people will base their entire recovery program on this principle alone. Now that is taking things too far and will rob you of growth but the fact remains that networking with others in recovery is a very powerful strategy. The reason for this is that the support we get from others really can make a difference in helping us to stay clean and sober.

Now it is also the case that some people will rely on this network support more than others and therefore this strategy will be more important in their recovery efforts. It is also a good rule of thumb that networking be an important strategy for early recovery, but should probably shift towards the back burner as one progresses in recovery and starts pursuing holistic growth. If it remains the primary recovery strategy then a person risks stagnation and relapse because they will tend to use social support as a crutch instead of pushing themselves to grow. But this is really a fairly minor risk in light of the benefits that you get from networking with others in recovery, so it still pays to seek out this support.

How can we network in recovery? Find other recovering addicts and alcoholics and connect with them in a meaningful way. For most of us in recovery this will most easily be accomplished through 12 step meetings. They are the great shortcut to networking as they provide a social solution for recovery. Like I mention above though do not rely on the social aspect as your primary recovery solution however. Eventually you must concentrate on the other strategies here (such as holistic growth) in order to achieve long term sobriety.

Holistic growth is the key

Many people in traditional recovery programs believe that spirituality is the key to recovery. I have found this to be untrue in my experience, although spirituality is still an important component of recovery. In fact, the real solution is holistic, not spiritual. The solution involves more than just being “spiritual.” It is bigger than that.

The reason for this is because addiction did not affect us spiritually….it affected us spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and so on. Addiction affected all areas of our lives. So why would we turn to a solution that only treats one small area of this? That doesn’t make sense. If you really study the winners in recovery who are achieving long term sobriety, you’ll notice that they actually have a holistic approach (even if they believe it is only a spiritual approach).

In other words, they might exercise, they may have quit smoking, they might strive for emotional balance, they probably work on their relationships, and so on. They are actively pursuing growth in many different areas of their lives – not just spiritually. This is the holistic approach to recovery and it is much more powerful than traditional recovery programs.

Holistic growth is like a lever that can change your whole life. It is the path of transition into long term recovery.

Recovery is about living, not about recovery

Some people who are working a traditional recovery program seem to lose the forest for the trees. They get so wrapped up in their “program” that they get distracted from living their life.

Recovery isn’t about programs – it’s about living. In essence, you’re trying to recover the life you had before it was ravaged by drugs and alcohol. The goal is to live a purposeful life in recovery, not to become some automaton recovery robot that has to recharge constantly at meetings.

Be mindful of your recovery strategy and check to see if you’ve created another dependency. The core strategies listed above are natural growth processes, not tactics that can be turned into dependencies. They make sense to rational people in their simplicity (especially caring for self).

Using structure that fights complacency

In long term recovery, our only enemy is complacency. That is why one of the core strategies is specifically designed to combat complacency directly: the push for holistic growth.

The idea here is that if we always have this push for holistic growth in the back of our minds, then we will never get too complacent with our recovery and we will forever be nudging ourselves to pursue more growth.

Of course, you have to actually do it. That is the whole key to recovery anyway – action. It’s all about action.

We can sit around and think positive recovery thoughts all day, but the real magic starts when we take serious action. This is where the idea of structure comes into play as well.

You can use structure in your life to fight complacency. How do you do this? Find structures that promote growth and then pursue those structures. Implement them into your life.

For example, if you join a gym and exercise their regularly, you are using structure to promote your own growth. It’s like using the force of habit to your advantage.

Or you might get involved with sponsorship in the 12 step program. This sets up a structure of networking with others in recovery.

Another example might be with education. If you enroll in college to pursue a degree, that is using structure to further your personal growth.

When it comes to structure, think big. Think long term. Use structures that will have a big impact on your life, and you can thus fight complacency in recovery by keeping yourself active in growth.

Action items – what you can do:

1) Use the 3 strategies to guide your everyday actions and decisions. Caring for self, networking with others, and the push for holistic growth.

2) Seek out structures that promote long term growth and fight complacency.

3) The long term goal is healthy living, not “total recovery program immersion.” Freedom and a purposeful life are the goals.