Is Stress Threatening Your Recovery?
Face it: life can be really stressful at times. Maybe you work for a company that has been laying people off and you wonder when the ax is going to come down on you. Or you have a mortgage payment that you just barely make, so if those medical bills are going to be as big as you think they are, you might just be forced into bankruptcy. Maybe it’s a relationship: your spouse seems distant and you wonder if the marriage is over. Then there are the everyday stressors: a terrible commute each morning and evening, a child who is struggling in school, a sick relative, a boss that only criticizes and never supports your work.
Whatever the stress is in your life, you have a major responsibility to focus on: staying sober. That means diffusing stress is critical for you. The first thing to do is ask what you can change. We all know the prayer in which we ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can. There is a reason this is called the Serenity Prayer. When we try to change things we can’t control, or don’t take action to change things we can, we feel anything but serene.
No one lives a stress-free life. Stuff gets us down. Things happen that make us feel helpless at times. However, it’s important not to let these things escalate until you feel hopeless because hopelessness is not a safe place to be in sobriety.
Some of this has to do with perceptions. If we continually perceive every set back as the end of the world and as evidence that NOTHING EVER goes our way, we are sure to end up depressed and miserable. If we see each event as an isolated event – part of the unpredictability of life on Earth – we can deal with these single events much better.
Do you have specific strategies and tools to deal with stress? If life is going great, that can be a good time to develop habits and plans for when things don’t go as well. There are certain activities and practices that can help you de-stress:
Exercise such as a daily walk
Quiet time – contemplation, meditation, exploration
Friendship – talking to people who understand you
Family – keeping relationships strong so you aren’t just leaning on them in bad times, you are tending to the relationship in good times too
Giving – service and sacrifice to help someone less fortunate puts things in perspective
Peers – remember that only another alcoholic or addict really gets you on a gut level – don’t let these relationships slip away as time goes by
