As I’ve seen people grow in recovery, the people who seem successful approach their recovery with several different tools.
- Spirituality: New recovery often includes a focus on spirituality. For some this means prayer, meditation, journaling, working the 12 Steps, taking yoga, attending church or attending solo workshop retreats.Nutrition: Maintaining a well-balanced diet including breakfast, lunch and dinner is important to feeling sane and balanced. Often when someone is new in recovery, planning to eat in healthy ways is a new skill. Many folks start with learning to plan to eat nutritious foods like oatmeal or fruit, and then when they’ve mastered simple foods, they often find that they’d like to experiment with cooking more complicated and interesting foods.
- Exercise: This helps with physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Often when a person starts moving his or her body regularly, this can elevate the mood and balance the perspective. In Los Angeles there are hiking trails, surfing and paddle board classes in Malibu, the Los Angeles Marathon, and fitness classes of every type.
- Community: Having a strong support network of friends in recovery is important in maintaining perspective and balance. People in recovery help each other as part of their own recovery, sometimes this helping person is a “Sponsor” but sometimes this is just another friend in recovery.
- Service: Helping others increases a person’s sense of value and keeps them focused on solutions, strengthening their commitment to recovery.
Someone in early recovery can focus on these basic tools alone and will busy for awhile building this foundation. As they improve in each area, they will find themselves feeling more balanced and centered.