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A lack of friendships and close connections can lead to relapse. By learning to combat loneliness, you can empower your recovery journey. Once you are stable enough in your recovery, you can start paying it forward to others by volunteering to serve as a sponsor. While the 12 steps of AA don’t require participants to become sponsors, they do emphasize passing the lessons you’ve learned in recovery on to others.
Using coping skills and other tools can help ease your mind, learn to make new friends, and even live in the moment. So it makes sense that you feel loneliness when you first get sober. On top of that, COVID-19 has made it so you can’t get hugs and comfort from others in recovery in person. Recovery from a substance use disorder is a challenging process, and it can be lonely at times.
How Do You Improve Your Self-Awareness in Addiction Recovery?
Sometimes, if we get hooked on negative social evaluations, we can get stuck in organizing our behavior around avoidance. “As a result, you might not behave in a way that benefits you the most and instead you’re feeding negative personal judgment,” Coyne explained. Someone with social anxiety may struggle to interact with others, even though they may crave human connection. According to a 2018 survey by Cigna, nearly half of Americans reported sometimes or always feeling alone, and one in five people reported never feeling close to people. Whether you are early in your career or a seasoned professional, McLean has resources to support you through a lifetime of helping patients succeed.
It can make you feel like it doesn’t really matter if you stay sober or not. Worst of all, loneliness is often connected to a deep need that’s not being met, and people often try to meet that need with drugs and alcohol. If you are in recovery, finding real connections with other people is crucial. This is similar https://ecosoberhouse.com/ to connecting with yourself and is something you likely learned in cognitive behavioral therapy sessions. In order to deal with your feelings of loneliness and depression, you have to confront them and recognize them. The inability to do this is often why people begin using drugs or alcohol in the first place.
Loneliness and Sobriety
We’ll review the research on the topic – there’s not much – and conclude with our top ten tips on managing loneliness during recovery. Pick a cause or organization you believe in and help them out. You are bound to meet new people who share your interests — and maybe feel good about contributing to your community. At the moment, we’re all under quarantine from the coronavirus and that might put a damper on meetings in your area. If that’s the case, you may be able to connect with your group digitally.
You can make friends in rehab or support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. When we experience feelings of anxiety, loneliness, sadness, or despair, the reflexive urge to manage our negative feelings is to relieve the negative emotions. Frequent participation in a 12-step or other how to cope with loneliness during addiction recovery addiction recovery group is another excellent strategy for keeping you accountable and overcoming loneliness. Contrary to common misconceptions, hearing other people’s stories can inspire you to continue pursuing your goals of lifelong sobriety instead of tempting you back into substance abuse.
How to Make Exercise a Regular Part of Your Addiction Recovery
Loneliness is a vulnerable state, making it difficult for someone who is lonely to reach out and try to connect. When you enter into addiction treatment, it’s important to find a supportive community to help you in your addiction recovery process. Social support circles are extremely powerful in helping you stay sober and feel welcomed.
- The main reason is that loneliness can’t simply be treated by medications.
- When you make the most of group therapy, you understand that you are never alone.
- Once you learn to be your own friend, you will find that much of your loneliness fades, and you will learn to be a better friend to others.
- We can even feel alone when we’re surrounded by other people.
- Let your mind focus on the pain of loneliness and embrace it.