5 Ways to Deal with Anxiety When You’re Sober

I thought their lives were boring, routine, and unexciting. Alcoholism had me 100 percent convinced that life was not fun without the presence of alcohol. I am not the only one who feels the way I felt. Until we smash these common misconceptions about sobriety, people will continue to think sobriety is boring. And in the meantime, being sober will allow you to make more meaningful, lasting friendships based around ‘real’ things as opposed to intoxicated interactions.

The fear of being sober is a very common fear in recovery. To outsiders it might sound like a fear of success, but the fear of sobriety is more about your feelings without substance abuse. After all, it’s been a long time since you were sober, and maybe your last experiences of sobriety were traumatic.

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That’s why you started using in the first place. The truth is, you have been using drugs or alcohol to cope with your feelings and maybe even symptoms of mental illness. If you give substance abuse up, you’ll have to face those emotions and find a new way to cope.

We use alcohol to cover up our pain and our problems. We use drugs to numb ourselves and our emotions and to push off thinking for another day. But when we no longer have those devices at our disposal, we’re left with only our minds, our willpower and our inner strength to carry us through the hard times. We’re forced to think and analyze our problems, to come up with solutions, and in doing so we may fail or make mistakes. But that’s how we grow and learn, and how we learn to cope better when the next challenge presents itself.

Broken and Bleeding: Emotional Trauma and Substance Use Disorder

It’s disheartening to realize what you’ve lost. It may help to pick a quit date, or a day when you choose to discontinue use of alcohol or drugs. It’s also helpful to change your environment—for instance, avoid going to bars. There are also resources such as 12-step groups and recovery groups. Find a group of individuals that uplift you and make you feel good about your recovery. The people you surround yourself with and reach out to can be an incredible support to you during this journey and the opportunities for new friendships and new fun is limitless.

• Fear can only take you so far, but your true purpose will take you as far as you want.
• However, addiction treatment involves support in this respect.
• What you do NOT want to do is let your fear about what MIGHT happen with your friends in the future dictate what you do to take care of yourself in the present.

Sobriety means having to face uncomfortable truths about ourselves and others and having to stand up and be who we are. We may have to face all kinds of adversities and personal challenges while we fear of being sober come clean. While you’re in active addiction, the life you imagine without drugs seems awful. Sobriety seems like a lot of hard work, boring, and downright miserable—not to mention impossible.

Sobriety Fear #4: You’ll actually succeed.

However, addiction treatment involves support in this respect. During rehab, you can take up fitness classes, as well as engage in meditation, yoga, cooking, nutrition classes and art. By exploring healthy living during rehab, you will find it much easier to carry on with these positive habits in your regular life.