6 Ways to Enjoy the Little Things in Life + Why You Should Appreciate Them
You have people who look up to you, even if you don’t realize it right now. When you stay sober, you allow yourself to become an inspiration for other people, especially those who are considering becoming clean and sober. When you’re in active recovery, these challenges can seem even harder to overcome. Even if you’ve been clean and sober for some time, hardships in life can lead you back to a spot where you wonder if you will relapse.
#1: Being Healthy Feels Good
But once you’ve done one brave thing, who knows what you’ll do next? If you found the courage to stop drinking, you might find the courage to ask for what you want in other areas of life too. Alcohol gives you a very brief, artificial high, followed by a long and painful low.
- Young children engage fully in what they are doing.
- You can remember everything and not feel that sense of terror of waking up and not remembering what you said or did the previous night.
- Let’s face it—substance use is expensive.
You’ll have lots more energy
Without alcohol clouding your judgment or holding you back, sobriety unlocks your full potential for growth. One of the most rewarding aspects of what does stay sober mean sobriety is experiencing linear progression in various areas of your life. When drinking, personal development often feels erratic—one step forward, two steps back.
Be a Healthy Role Model for Your Children
One of the things that I’m a lot happier with is I take care of myself so much better, not just because I’m not drinking. If I need help, I will ask someone to help. I’ll put down a boundary I’ll schedule a time for me to see my girlfriend’s like, I used to do none of that. Because I think I felt guilty that I was drinking so much that I wanted to overcompensate so that no one would say anything.
It may feel hopeless right now, but trust can be rebuilt Sober living house over time. Guilt is a sense of doing something wrong, whereas shame is the sense of being a bad person. Both often show up when struggling with substances. People may turn to substances due to boredom or the lack of meaning and purpose in life.
Also, you learn to just relax and have faith. Not everyone has a God or Higher Power that they pray too, but faith isn’t https://ubn.481.myftpupload.com/blog/sober-living/how-opioid-use-disorder-occurs/ always meant in that way. Sometimes having faith means knowing that everything will be ok.
Remember that social media isn’t always real, and that there’s no mom in this world who has it all together all the time. You can’t appreciate the little things if you’re too busy, too tired, or too stressed to notice them. And the best way to start noticing them is to slow down your pace and be intentional about noticing what’s going on around you. If you’re always focusing on the past or the future, it’s easy to ignore and miss things like the happily chirping birds or the smell of the backyard after it rains. And if you just need a little motivation to get through today, here are 10 excellent reasons to stay sober. They may be little things but done often enough they can become familiar, trusted and valued parts of our daily routine.
- My podcast is happiest sober podcasts on all platforms.
- The even better news is that finding fun stuff to do when you’re sober, and with other cool sober people, has never been easier.
- When you’re focusing all of your time and energy on your addiction, you don’t have time to meet new people and build rewarding relationships.
- Alcoholics aren’t able to form deep and meaningful relationships.
And so, I’m a little smug, which I enjoy. I’m like, oh, yeah, these people are all drunk. And like, really, the way I managed it was I would just be like, plotting the next drink in my brain. But yeah, I really being able to just be like being able to take things as they come and deal with them and much, much healthier ways. As we reflect on the journey of discovering joy in the little things, we find ourselves enveloped in God’s grace. Embracing the beauty of nature, the depth of relationships, and the quiet comforts in daily life helps us cultivate a heart of gratitude and appreciation.