We Aren’t Talking About ‘Trad-wives’
Perhaps you have noticed the current trend on social media of posts by women who have adopted a “traditional wife” mode of living. Often called “tradwives,” these online influencers reflect what they position as a return to older values that have shifted in the modern world. Generally, that looks like staying at home, doing the housework, and ensuring that their husband is catered to in various ways.
The title of this blog post might have led you to believe that trad-wives were on our mind (and to be fair, we did write a whole paragraph about them!), but we want to talk about cooking, cleaning, and keeping your budget in order not as a way to return to some mythical past but as a way to support your ongoing sobriety.
A person in recovery from a substance use disorder often benefits from routines and activities that support their physical and/or mental health. Cooking, cleaning, and budgeting can all provide benefits that support your recovery efforts.
Cooking: A Hobby and a Way to Eat Healthily
A person in recovery is well served by having an engaging hobby and by consistently eating healthily. Developing your skills in the kitchen can serve both goals.
Many people don’t like to cook or feel as though they don’t have time to do so on a regular basis. But if you reframe the process from a chore to a creative activity, you might find that cooking offers some real pleasures and can be a good way to take some time for yourself.
Additionally, cooking can be a great way to ensure that the food that you eat is good for you. A healthy diet is good for your mental and physical health—and for your recovery.
Sharpening your skills as a cook can also give you the opportunity to share homemade meals with friends and family, which is a wonderful way to build quality relationships and thus provide a firmer foundation for your sobriety.
Explore these benefits in this blog post focused entirely on cooking.
Cleaning: A Way to Lower Stress
Though it is possible some people think of cleaning as a hobby, by and large, we have to admit that straightening up tends to be more of a chore than a pleasure.
However, keeping your spaces orderly and clean can help lower stress in a couple of ways. First, a more organized room is a more relaxing room, allowing you to enjoy a space that brings calmness rather than offering chaos. Secondly, items—like keys or wallets or shoes or what have you—are far more easily found in a cleaner environment, and not having to rush around searching for something decreases the stress in your day. And it turns out that a tidier environment in your bedroom also supports better sleep, which is good for your body and your mind.
Overall, bringing more order to the spaces where you live and work is a great way to support and maintain your hard-won sobriety.
Budgeting: A Way to Stay on Top of Things
Money is easily one of the biggest stressors in most everyone’s life, but making a budget can help you keep track of your money and ease some of that stress.
Starting a budget can feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. First, write down your monthly income as accurately as you can. Next, write down your monthly expenses—including all your bills and your mandatory expenses like groceries and gas. Now you have a sense of what you are bringing in and what is going out, and that can help you make good decisions about your money and reduce feelings of uncertainty and stress.
Having a handle on your money helps you keep a firm grip on your sobriety.
We Are Here to Help
When you are struggling with drugs or alcohol, it can feel as though you are trapped. You know that the substances are doing damage to your body, your brain, your relationships, and more. And you know that trying to stop using those substances on your own can lead to extremely severe withdrawal symptoms that send you right back to the drugs or alcohol. It can seem as though everything is hopeless.
Fortunately, however, there is hope. At Wooded Glen Recovery Center—located in Henryville, Indiana—we provided personalized treatment for substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders. That treatment begins with medically supervised detoxification, which allows you to get the substances out of your system in a safe environment.
Detox is followed by a rehabilitation program that includes group and individual therapy sessions. Rehab provides strategies and resources for staying sober as well as treatment for mental health challenges—like depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder—that may be entangled with your substance use disorder.
When your time in treatment comes to an end, you can count on continuing support from Wooded Glen so that you can start your recovery journey with confidence. When you are ready to start living again, we can help you learn how.