Habits can be good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. If you are in recovery from a substance use disorder (which some people might refer to as a drug habit), you know this is true.
What is also true—and perhaps a little less obvious—is that good and bad habits can be two sides of the same coin. Take, for example, a common bad habit: nail biting.
Biting your nails is bad for your nails, your teeth, and your health (who knows what you are ingesting when you put your fingers in your mouth?). The other side of the nail-biting coin is regular nail clipping. It is better to get into the habit of clipping your nails instead of biting them.
This idea that one habit is the flip side of another applies to recovery, too. Let’s take a look at what that looks like when it comes to establishing the routines that support the continuation of your recovery journey.
Healthy Habit: Practicing Mindfulness
Mindfulness practice—a meditation technique that builds on the notion of bringing your attention to your breath as you sit quietly—is a good habit to acquire in recovery. That is because mindfulness helps you learn to stay in the current moment rather than letting your thoughts drift into the past or the future. This focus on the present supports your recovery.
On the other hand, if you are in the habit of ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, you are in danger of undermining your recovery. Rumination tends to focus heavily on mistakes and regrets, while a future focus often leads to feelings of anxiety. Those regrets and worries can chip away at the foundations of your recovery, increasing the likelihood of a relapse.
Building mindfulness into your routines can serve you well in recovery.
Healthy Habit: Having a Hobby
A hobby is not really a hobby if you do not do it regularly. To put it another way, a hobby is a kind of habit—a habit that supports relaxation and recharging. Keeping stress at bay is important in recovery, and a hobby habit can help you do that.
What is the flip side of building a routine around a hobby? It might look something like working all the time. In fact, because society seems to emphasize productivity over almost everything else, many people do get into the habit of working and working…and then working some more. For a person in recovery, that tendency can even turn into a substitute addiction—a habit that truly has no upside.
We encourage you to build a hobby habit as a way to lower your stress levels and protect your recovery.
Healthy Habit: Sustaining Positive Relationships
Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, your life and your recovery benefit from spending time with supportive friends and family. When you decide to make sustaining your relationships a habit, you stave off boredom, loneliness, and languishing—none of which are good for your recovery.
You could think of isolation as the flip side of sociability, and that would be true. But we also want to point out that you do not want to habitually spend time with people you associate with your drug or alcohol use. You also do not want to hang out with individuals who tear you down and weaken your self-esteem and self-confidence.
Getting into the habit of spending your time with people who build you up is a wonderful way to support your recovery.
Healthy Habits: Eating Healthily, Sleeping Restfully, and Exercising Regularly
We group these three habits together because you might think of them as the most foundational behaviors that support your recovery. We have covered each of them extensively in previous blogs—including a recent five-part series on healthy eating—because they are habits everyone should build into their lives.
Unfortunately, all too many folks, whether they are in recovery or not, have fallen into habits around eating, sleeping, and exercising that do not support good physical or mental health. That is, of course, particularly problematic for a person in recovery because physical and mental well-being are essential supports as you work to leave drugs or alcohol firmly in the past.
Healthy Habit: Getting Help When You Need It
Wooded Glen Recovery Center, located in Henryville, Indiana, is consistently recognized as one of the best substance use disorder treatment facilities in the nation. While many people—perhaps you yourself—are in the habit of trying to handle every difficulty that comes along on their own. But when it comes to substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders, that self-reliance routine is not what is best for you.
Wooded Glen provides personalized treatment plans for individuals struggling with drugs or alcohol. We are also able to address co-occurring mental health disorders—including depression, anxiety, and more—that may be entangled with a substance use disorder. Our program includes medically supervised detoxification, an approach to rehabilitation that includes individual and group therapy sessions, and a commitment to providing ongoing support and resources as your recovery journey gets underway.
That is all to say, we are in the habit of helping people, but there is nothing routine about our approach. If you are ready to make a change, we are ready to help.