Sober Self-Care

Can we all agree that sometimes being alive is exhausting? While living sober can make life a lot easier, at best, we’re still human, and the capacity for burnout is real. Everyone should practice self-care, but if you’re like me and in recovery, we get our own special division of self-care; I like to call it sober self-care. Too on the nose? Yeah, maybe. But hey, I never claimed to be very creative.  Cut me some slack… sheesh!

I’m sure you’ve heard of self-care by now. It seems like every online self-help guru, mental health professional, and employer is screaming from the rooftops about the importance of self-care these days. That’s all good and well, and I’m certainly not knocking that by any means. Typically, though, when I imagine self-care in my mind’s-eye, I think of spa days, fishing trips, shopping days, or weekend get-a-ways to beach or mountain destinations, am I right?

Before I go too much further though, let me just say there’s nothing wrong with any of these self-care activities. If you genuinely enjoyed doing these things before getting sober, you can keep on keeping on. If you’re concerned that you can’t do what you love now that you quit drinking, I’ve got a pro tip for ya… you ready? You can still do all those things in sobriety, here’s how: do it sober!

The truth of the matter though, is that if you’re anything like me, you didn’t necessarily participate in these activities before or even during your drinking days. Even if you did, answer me this, when you picture these stereotypical self-care activities, there was always some form of booze in accompaniment, right?

Whether it was a full glass of blood-red wine next to the fluffily white spa towels, bottomless mimosas at brunch before a day of shopping, or a Coleman cooler stocked with cold beer shore side… booze was probably involved in some form or fashion. So, if you’re not quite ready to return to those types of activities in sobriety, you’re probably going to need to design a sober self-care routine.

I’ve never been great at self-care in general. To be honest, for the longest time, I wasn’t even sure what self-care really was. From the best I could tell, self-care was treating yourself to a pack of double-stuffed Oreos, buying yourself a new pair of shoes, and turning off your phone for a couple of hours on a Saturday. While I guess any or maybe even all those things could be considered self-care, I like to take my sober self-care routine a little deeper than stuffing my face, spending my money, and ignoring a couple of phone calls.

Story Time:

As you may recall from some of my earlier posts on the blog, I spent my first 45-ish days sober in rehab. It was a humble little place, aptly named, and tucked away in the dry flat coastal plains of South Georgia. If you’ve ever had the privilege of attending an inpatient program, you know what an exhilarating and confusing time it can be. You also know that once insurance stops paying, the facility will then, basically, give you the boot.

The “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here” vibe is strong once those insurance payments stop rolling in. Well, that was the case for me anyway. My counselor did the best she could filing for recertifications to extend my stay, but eventually there was a big fact “NOPE” from my insurance provider, and it was time to start looking at discharge plans.  

The Last Days:

Now I could have easily pouted about my situation. I mean to be fair, what would you have done? In my pursuit of getting sober, I had recently become homeless, unemployed, and a college dropout; I had nowhere to go once I was discharged. I could have pouted, and looking back, I might should have pouted for a minute or two. Instead, this poorly timed news strengthened my resolve to soak in every bit of experience, strength, and hope prior returning to life on the outside.

In fact, I did wind up receiving several golden nuggets for my sobriety in those last few days in treatment. I’ve already shared a few of those nuggets with you here on the blog! Among those valuable tidbits, I learned about lessons in acceptance, learning to let go, and yup you guessed it… sober self-care.

Homework Assignments:

The rehab facility I was at offered two different treatment modalities. Well, I guess really it was two different versions of the same form of treatment. There was what us patients referred to as “big group” which consisted of the entire women’s population at the center, and then there was what we called “small group” which was comprised of about 10-15 of us ladies who were assigned to a specific staff counselor.

I don’t mean to brag, but it’s quite possible that my small group had the best counselor on staff at the whole place. I’m sure everyone probably says that, but honestly, this lady was the bomb.com. Granted, I would have liked to have had more scheduled one-on-one sessions with her, but that’s on the facility not her.

Anyhow, I’ve talked about this counselor before in previous posts. She’s the one who liked to assign homework after each session that was almost always due the following day.

Considering that several of us in our small group were scheduled to be discharged over the next few days, our counselor decided it was time to really dig deep into discharge plans, relapse prevention plans, and the “what comes next” question that people love to ask when you first get sober.

Then, on maybe my second to last day in treatment, she decided to throw one last curveball at us during group. “What do you like to do for fun?” she asked. A bit taken aback, we all just kind of looked around at each other, fairly confused to be quite honest. Fun?

The Reality:

Then, almost as if on cue, we all busted out laughing at the most obvious answer any of us could come up with at that time. “DRINK!” We all chimed in at once in a fit of laughter. Luckily, our counselor had a good sense of humor and could understand the comedic nature of our responses.

“No, seriously though, what do you all enjoy doing when you’re not drinking?” she asked again, rephrasing the question ever so slightly. Just as clueless and confused as we were the first time she asked, we all continued to rack our brains for some type of decent worthwhile response.

The truth of the matter is that for many of us, drinking had stopped being fun a long time ago. It had been even longer since we had “enjoyed” doing anything. When you drink like I did, your entire life revolves around drinking as much as you possibly can, running towards oblivion, and dumping more booze on top of it all when you fall short of the intended goal. It’s a vicious cycle, and it had long ago stopped being “fun” or “enjoyable.”

I was not alone in this sentiment, but none of us was quite brave enough to put it into words for our counselor. She figured it out on her own though, and that’s when the homework assignment was dropped on us like a South Georgia heatwave in mid-August.

“Here’s the deal” she said, “I want you each to make a list of things that bring you joy, give you peace, or make you feel good about yourself.” She went on to say how we’d all be at our respective homes and out in the real world again very soon. We needed to know how to practice some self-care to maintain what we had learned during our stay here in treatment. This so-called list was to be presented to our small group the very next day before lunch. I panicked…

Panic Time:

One thing to know about me is that I’m kind of a nerd. Always have been. Not necessarily the type of nerd who asked the teacher to give us homework, not the type of nerd who often claimed curve-buster status to ruin everyone’s grades on important tests in school, but I did once memorize the entire periodic table of elements for “fun” in middle school. Like I said, NERD!

Rehab was a whole different story though. If it’s possible to be “good” at rehab, I wasn’t it. While I enjoyed group, I often dreaded the homework assignments my counselor doled out. I struggled… hard. I never seemed to fully understand or be emotionally prepared for what she was asking us to do. Perhaps that was the whole point; I’m not real sure to be honest.

In any case, I had managed to eke by with my letting-go letter assignment earlier in my stay and had finally gotten the hang of our morning “check-in” assignments around day 25-ish. This self-care list, however, threw me for a loop.

I had no idea what to write down. I mean at one point in my life I considered myself to be an avid reader, but I hadn’t had the time or availability to leisurely read in years! That couldn’t make it onto the list, not if I was being truthful. Other than that, I had nothing.

I had lost all bearing on who I was as a person, or what I liked about being alive. It had been so long since I could remember enjoying anything in life. For the past 5 years, minimum, my life had consisted of waking up, drinking, going to class/work (while drunk), going home, and drinking some more. That’s it; that was my life. I remember thinking that I was kind of a loser. I mean who doesn’t have hobbies, interests, or passions??

Crunch Time:

As the hours passed, I dug deep, and really pushed my last few working brain cells to do their best work on this self-care list. Between the brain fog, anxiety, and existential crisis, I had no more luck on hour 18 than I did at hour one.

Naturally, like any slacker student in school does, I started asking around. I bugged my roommates and other members from my small group to see what they had put on their lists. This mission also proved to be largely unhelpful to my cause. Nothing against them or their lists, but I personally had no interest in getting manicures, finding a good church, or spending more quality time with children that I didn’t have.

I was effectually screwed. This would be the first time in my memory that I would “go to class” completely unprepared with an incomplete assignment. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I showed up with absolutely nothing, so I decided to scribble a few random things down in my rehab-issued composition notebook. The makeshift list looked a little something like this.

1. Go to Meetings
2. Read Big Book
3. Gratitude Lists
4. Daily Walks
5. Get A Dog
6. Travel

The Presentation:

All 15 of us ladies filtered into the counselor’s quaint little office, found our seats, and group began. I had a plan at this point, I was going to figure out a way to go very last in hopes that we’d run out of time, and I could just skip the part where I had to present my pitiful list. Mission failed! It was right at time for group to dismiss, but my counselor wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to share.

I quickly mumbled and muttered through my list, my group clapped at the end as we had done after each person’s share, and everyone was dismissed for lunch. Well… actually, not everyone. I was specifically asked to stay behind while everyone else made their way down the hall. Shit!

I’ve never been that person, the one who was asked to stay late to have their own “private” meeting with the teacher after class. Yet, here I was. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.

My counselor, who was instantly becoming less and less cool by the minute said, “I noticed you scribbling your list down right before group started this afternoon.” I explained why, and how bad I had struggled with this assignment. “I just had to make some stuff up at the last minute,” I explained. “I’m sorry, I tried, really I did.”

She paused for a moment, looked at me, smiled, and said:  “You didn’t make any of that up.” Confused yet again, I defended my initial response by outlining that basically everything on that list were items or activities that I had stolen from people in my home group prior to entering treatment. I tried to clarify, that none of the ideas on that list were original.

“Exactly!” she said and explained that every item on my list was exactly perfect the way it was because it had already proven effective for other people who were sober! I was shocked, sooo, I didn’t fail? It was in the next few moments of the subsequent conversation that I had an epiphany of sorts. You know the type that are obvious to everyone else but seem earth shattering when you’re new to sobriety. Here are a few things that I finally came to the realization about as it relates to sober self-care.

Sobriety First:

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, in life has priorities. From the outside looking in, we may not always understand why certain people prioritize one thing over another, but each person has a method to their own madness.

Recovering people are no different. I have always been told that whatever I put above my sobriety will be the first thing I lose if I go back out. I believe that because I have seen it with my own eyes. When it comes to sober self-care, my sobriety comes before anything or anyone else. Period. This is where items 1, 2, and 3 come into play on my sober self-care list.

Now, I might not do all three every single day, but each day I make sure to do something that adds to my recovery arsenal. I can’t stay sober today on yesterday’s work. It helps, sure, but eventually the cup will run dry if I don’t routinely add to it. If I don’t prioritize my recovery, at some point there will come a time that I have nothing else in my life to prioritize.

I Matter, Too:

This is a big one for me. As a person in recovery, it is important that I spend a lot of time, effort, and energy working on my recovery. However, my entire life and personality isn’t and doesn’t have to be about my sobriety. Gasp!

It took me a while to find a healthy balance, but I eventually learned that I matter, too! Like how parents are more than just parents. They are a spouses, children, friends, employees, etc. We all wear multiple hats, and there are multiple cups that need filling to keep us healthy, grounded, and whole. This is where items 4, 5, and 6 from my sober self-care list come into play.

Taking care of my recovery is important for me, and having something that brings me joy is important to me. My sober self-care routine involves moving my body, having a furry, four-legged body to love on and play with, and traveling to new and magical places gives me something to aspire to and be excited about. It’s pretty cut and dry for me.

Keep It Simple:

Lastly, it’s worth noting that contrary to popular belief, size doesn’t matter. (Okay, I’ll see myself out.) Sober self-care doesn’t have to incorporate extravagant trips, expensive expenditures, time off work, child-care, or even a car. Your routine for sober self-care doesn’t have to look anything like mine or resemble anyone else’s in the slightest.

You have to find what works for you. For me, I’ve learned that it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. Little things that I can do in some capacity each day add to my recovery journey and recharge my spirit. A simple walk down a new street near my house, cuddling with the dogs on the couch, and chatting with a sober friend on a front porch somewhere does more for me than any extravagant trip, spa, or retreat could ever accomplish. However, occasionally, big things are nice, too! (Okay, for real, get your mind out of the gutter!)

Essentially, when it comes to sober self-care remember these three things, and you’ll be just fine.

1. Sobriety First
2. You Matter, Too
3. Keep it Simple