Taking a Break in Recovery

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Published 2022-03-21

In my addiction, when I felt tired and stressed and needed a break from life, I always felt like I needed to take days or weeks off from work and responsibility in order to recharge. Of course, if I did that I'd spend the time getting drunk and high and would actually be worse off at the end of the vacation than I was when I started. In recovery, I have to remember that recharging my batteries can be as simple as taking five minutes out of a busy day to do some prayer and meditation, or taking a half hour for myself at the end of a stressful day. In today's video, I talk some about why unwinding in recovery looks different than it did in my addiction and some of my favorite ways to do it.

All Comments (2)

@amazing-osky2052 2 years ago

WOW… This got to be one of my favorite videos from the bunch because you share something so personal and real. “I need a vacation from my vacation (have you ever heard that?)”. All those tips you gave to relax are helpful and necessary. Self-care is the #1 priority to heal and stay off drugs and alcohol, it is part of the maintenance stage. Very few understand the 5 stages of change, and you, my friend, have given a perfect example of the stage 5/maintenance stage. Being a therapist, while rewarding, can also be exhausting physically and mentally. Thus, we also need to exercise stages 4 and 5 (Action and Maintenance). One of the songs I used to play often, especially in the morning is from Van Halen, Jump! IN fact, my alarm clock was this song “I get up and nothin' gets me down, You got it tough, I've seen the toughest around, And I know, baby, just how you feel, You got to roll with the punches and get to what's real” This song got me inspired, motivated and energetic in the morning. We all need to find our motivations to keep rolling with the punches and face what’s real.