One of the most important things we can do for ourselves as we’re working to recover is ensuring our living environment is conducive to our sobriety rather than detrimental to it. Many of us had living situations that contributed to our addictive patterns and made us even more depressed. Now that we’re sober, we want to transform our homes to be supportive of our efforts in our recovery. This means making some changes we might not have thought of, eliminating certain triggers, and adding things that bolster our chances of success.
Stress in the Home
A crucial element of our living environment is how it makes us feel. If our home causes us additional stress and anxiety, it can weaken our resolve to stay sober. We can find ourselves overwhelmed if our homes still hold memories that are triggering or depressing for us. We can feel as though our homes are part of the problem if they remind us of our past issues with addiction and mental illness. For this reason, we want to try and remove things that remind us of our past struggles and things that we think might be triggers for relapse. This might mean we want to pack away old photographs or mementos until it’s easier for us to look at them. We might want to consider moving things around or redecorating. We might want to replace furniture or other things that we no longer enjoy. We might want to remove any clutter since physical messiness can make us feel even more confused and overwhelmed. We can donate any items from our homes that we no longer need, and this act of service can make us feel even better about ourselves and the new living environments we’re creating for ourselves.
Separating From Old Energy
Sometimes changing our living environment can be symbolic of the huge transformation we’re undergoing. We want our new homes to reflect our new selves. Holding onto old possessions that are carrying unwanted energy can be problematic for us. It can be hard to separate ourselves from things that were meaningful for us, but we want to ask ourselves if they are still serving a purpose in our lives or if they’re holding us back. If they’re not serving our highest selves, we can consider giving them away, selling them, or donating them. This can include things that remind us of old relationships, relationships that we don’t want to bring with us into this next phase of our recovery. As hard as it can be to let go of the physical reminders of these relationships, it’s so important to remove whatever might be destabilizing for us.
Creating Safe Spaces
Our homes need to be safe places where we don’t feel pressured to use our drug of choice. We’ll want to make sure we don’t keep any triggering or tempting substances in our homes, including our drugs of choice and anything else we might find ourselves tempted to use. For many of us, this means removing alcohol from our homes even if it wasn’t our original drug of choice. It also means being very careful who we invite into our homes. If we’re having gatherings, we’ll want to be sure to invite only people who we don’t think will have a problem keeping drugs and alcohol out of the house. We’ll want to have sober-only events so that we’re not triggered by anyone else’s usage. Eventually, we might feel comfortable being around people who are drinking or using. We might feel stable enough in our sobriety. Until then, it’s so important that everything in our homes be reflective of the work we’re doing to stay sober.
Recreating Our Homes
We want our homes to make us feel happy and at peace. We’ll want to decorate with things that make us feel calm, centered and joyful. We’ll want to pick colors and patterns that are soothing to us. We can make it a fun family activity to find artwork and other special items to add to our homes. We can enjoy the process of recreating our living environments. We can add flowers, plants and other beautiful touches to make our home feel even more comforting. We can consider adopting pets, something that can really help us in our recovery because we have a new source of love and responsibility, something outside of ourselves to focus on and care for. Nothing makes a home more comforting than the unconditional love from our animals.
Refuge From the Stresses of Life
The more our living environments feel like home, the more they will become our refuge from the stresses in our lives. We’ll be able to feel safe, nurtured and comforted when we’re home. We want to be able to have a calm, serene place to come home to, especially after a long, challenging day. We don’t want our homes to compound the stresses we’ve incurred outside of the home. We want to be able to shed our worries the minute we walk through the door. The less we’re adding to our stress within the home, the stronger and more empowered we’ll feel to be able to keep working toward recovery.
The caring, compassionate staff of The Guest House is here to support you as you start your journey to recovery and healing.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488