Being newly sober, it can be frightening to think “I will never drink again! I will have to go to these meetings the rest of my life. Life is going to stay the same forever”. Here are a few things you can do to challenge the pessimist inside of you, and how to spice up your sober life’s routine!
- Resolve to volunteer: this can be at an AA or NA event, through the fellowship or just a good cause. Volunteering is good for your soul and may provide a sense of purpose. They say when you are sad go help someone else. I can say from personal experience this is true! Find a charity that means something to you and volunteer.
- Resolve to share at meetings: Unless of course you are someone who shares at every meeting. In which case I challenge you to shut up and listen. (Something I’ve heard sponsors say to sponsee’s) So if you don’t share, it’s probably because you don’t feel comfortable talking in front of people or you don’t think what you have to say can help anyone, or it isn’t important. We are all important in meetings and everyone has something worth sharing!
- Resolve to go to a different meeting: you have your home group, if you don’t then get one! Outside of your home group, you may go to a few other select meetings. The challenge is to go to different meetings! One you’ve never been to! Maybe one that is a different format than the meetings you are used to. You may find you like it, meet a new friend, or hear something you never heard before.
- Resolve to try something holistic for your recovery: Yoga and meditation would be the top 2 holistic things I can think of. Anyone I know that meditates, and or does yoga, looks to happy and healthy and definitely has what I want. Make a resolution to try to incorporate something holistic into your life for at least 3 weeks. This gives your body, mind and soul a period of time to adjust.
- Resolve to pick up an old hobby or start a new one: Many of us lost the desire to do things during active addiction that we used to love to do. Before active addiction, did you draw or play an instrument? Cook or write poetry? I challenge you to dust off your paints or go to the hobby store and pick up a new project. Look in your local paper, many of your community colleges offer classes in the arts.
If you look closely you can see a pattern. All of these resolutions require you to go outside of your current comfort zone. They say life begins outside of your comfort zone! So, what do you resolve to do in your sober 2018?