Early recovery can feel like it will never end. Working toward that first full year of sobriety is one of the most challenging yet most rewarding things you will ever do in your lifetime. Every single day of that year you will watch magnificent transformations take place. Your entire life is going to change, from the way you think to the way you feel, to the way you act. From the beginning to the end of that first year, your relationship to your journey will change. For the first few months, you will find yourself wondering when things are going to get easier in recovery. The first six months of recovery are the most challenging months. After the first six months, recovery starts to get a little easier. Many people experience a tinge of difficulty around their nine month mark and another bumpy phase right after their year mark. Once the first full year passes, recovery typically gets increasingly “easier”.
DEFINING “EASY”
What exactly does “getting easier” mean in recovery? Recovery gets easier when, for logic’s sake, its stops being “hard”. Cravings are the most challenging part of early recovery, in combination with the total newness to one’s own thoughts and feelings. Getting used to being alive in sober in one’s own existence is an uncomfortable experience. Everything feels hard, from daily hygiene tasks, to choosing what to eat, to deciding what to do, to bearing the dark hours of the night. People in recovery don’t necessarily want to be using or drinking. They do just want everything to feel easier because every single part of their day feels difficult. Difficulty in daily routines or existence comes from the brain being at a deficit in it’s normal functioning. During addiction, the brain is operating at an extremely high level centered around pleasure. Once the brain sobers up, its new “normal” feels like a deficit to what it is used to, therefore, everything is indeed a struggle.
ONE DAY AT A TIME
Recovery gets easier every single day that you stay sober. Every minute, every hour, every moment that you stay sober is a step toward progress. Each experience, no matter how difficult or easy, is creating a foundation of recovery and building the resources that support long-term recovery from which you will actively thrive. Recovery is getting easier one day at a time. Remember to look at the journey of recovery as much as the destination of recovery becoming easier. Even years into recovery you will face difficult challenges. You will, however, walk through them with greater ease.
Treatment should be more than a program. When you joined Anchored Recovery, you join a community of individuals committed to sobriety. Our full continuum of care can help you seamlessly transition from detox through every phase of treatment you need to ensure lifelong sobriety. Call us today for information: 866-934-4849