You may have recently experienced a life changing event that caused you to realize that your drinking has gotten out of control and you want change. This change can be overwhelming and scary for many reasons, but I am here to tell you that you are not alone and I’ve been there!

I hit my rock bottom almost five years ago, and became empowered to give up alcohol and the control that it had over my life. I had no idea what my recovery would look like or if it were even possible—after all I had tried in the past and failed—I just knew that I had to!

Recovery isn’t easy, and It has been a long journey to get to where I am today. There are going to be many days where you feel like giving up and you may have feelings of hopelessness, but I am here to share with you five ways to use these opportunities for growth in your early stages of recovery.

5 ways to grow in the early stages of recovery

Identify your why.

Your why is what will get you through the hard days. As a person in long-term recovery I can honestly tell you that there will be days where you feel like giving up and throwing it all away because ‘what is the point?’. Where the feelings of guilt and shame for the things you have done in your drinking days rear their ugly head.

It‘s not uncommon for the people around to forget that you are fighting a daily battle because you ‘make it look easy’ or ‘it’s no longer an issue for you’. Those days are the days where you may feel completely alone and start questioning your very existence, but your WHY is what will enable you to overcome the negative-self talk that comes with being in recovery!

Knowing why you want your recovery and setting goals for yourself enables you to see how far you have come and how far you can still go! Rather than focusing on what happened while you were drinking or the repercussions, remind yourself of what you CAN have because of your recovery!

Without my recovery I wouldn’t be able to be here today, sharing my journey with you and fulfilling one of my goals!

Shift your mindset.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to do in recovery is change my way of thinking. I have always been an over-thinker and in my recovery I still have work to maintain my mindset. I have to be able to recognize when my thoughts are reverting back to their old ways and have tools in place to not go down the path of negative-self talk. Usually for me this means taking some time to practice self-care which we will get into later.

One of the biggest mindset shifts for me was no longer forming an identity around alcohol. I told myself that ‘Alcohol has no power over me’ rather than saying ‘I am powerless over alcohol’. My reasoning for this was to take my power back rather than giving it away! Admitting to yourself and those around you that you are powerless over alcohol, to me is giving alcohol control over you; the exact opposite reason for wanting sobriety. I understand that admitting you’re powerless over alcohol is apart of the Big Book and I respect your pathway to recovery, but it is not the case for me.

Affirmations hold so much power over our mindset, affirming in our minds that we are alcoholics and are powerless to me is putting a ceiling on ourselves, proclaiming that’s all we are and all we’ll ever be; which is why I refuse to identify myself as such. I believe in breaking the chains of addiction, rather than letting them tie us down!

Hal Elrod talks about the power of affirmations and shifting your mindset in his book: The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery: Letting Go of Who You’ve Been for Who You Can Become. —it is on my MUST READ list!

Practice self-care.

This is one area I cannot stress enough! Self-care plays a huge roll in recovery, not only do we have to take care of ourselves but we have to be aware of our thoughts, feelings and emotions. Practicing self-care has so many benefits in recovery, just to name a few:

• Enables us to reconnect with ourselves to identify triggers or unresolved feelings.

• Time to work through past traumas to find healing; most likely what we tried to find at the bottom of a bottle.

• Decompress and find a sense of peace when things seem to be overwhelming

• Personal and spiritual growth

Some of the ways I practice self-care are:

• Yoga

• Journaling

• Taking a hot bath or shower

• Reading a book on personal and/or spiritual development

• Listening to a Podcast or Audiobook

• Giving myself a manicure and/or pedicure

• Listening to music—usually a genre that matches the mood I’m in!

I am the type of person who ALWAYS put the needs of others before my own. This lead to burnout and a weakened state of mind and only enabled my drinking more. In my recovery I am still working on bettering myself in this area and recognizing what is and isn’t a priority for me. This is cliche as I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before, put your oxygen mask on first before helping the person next to you!

Live in gratitude.

This one I cannot stress enough, recovery is HARD and it also makes life in general hard! Due to your active drinking you may have lost things you’ve worked so hard to achieve and have to start over, you may have lost relationships with family and friends or you may feel as if you have nothing left to fight for. The list of what we give up—willingly or not—to make our recovery possible and how we got here is endless and everyone’s circumstances are different, but I am here to tell you that recovery IS possible and you will overcome this! Try to find a glimmer of hope through the power of gratitude, even if it is just for waking up another day sober!

Things I am grateful for:

• …others showing me who is truly in my arena fighting with me. (Brene Brown: The Call to Courage)

• …toxic people being removed from my life.

• …my growth in self-awareness and self-respect.

• Most importantly I am grateful for YOU being here!

Be reminded of the positive things in life through the power of gratitude, it gives you the ability to turn bad things into something good and remind you of what’s important.

Have a higher power.

Lastly, whatever your religion or spirituality may be, believe that there are forces out there bigger than us. Throughout my recovery I experienced a series of what I like to call divine appointments. Those moments were grooming me for the ones to come and when I made time for reflection I was able to see how everything and I mean EVERYTHING was connected.

I have admitted to myself things happen that are beyond my control and I may not know what the reasoning for them is and I may never know, but one thing I do know is everything happens for a reason and we are all where we need to be when we need to be there!