A major part of recovery is changing your lifestyle to fit the healthier way of life you are choosing to create for yourself. With this comes along filtering out certain influences that do not align with your sober life. Sometimes, negative influences aren’t always obvious, especially if something or someone has been a significant part of your life for a considerable amount of time. Looking closely at your behavior and the behavior of others will help you be able to identify who or what is bringing positivity or negativity into your space.
Negative Influences to Remove From Your Life in Recovery
- Toxic friends or family: Toxic people aren’t necessarily bad people, but they can be bad for you and bring out undesirable sides of yourself that aren’t conducive to your healing. These may be people with whom you used substances in the past, significant others you’ve shared codependent relationships with, or people who bring out your anger issues every time you interact.
- Triggering environments: Consciously choosing not to go to bars, clubs, restaurants or other specific places that you have strong associations with from your days of using or drinking is a good thing to leave behind. You can begin to create new positive connections with different places for your happy days of sober living.
- Bad mental attitudes: You can remove all of the external negative influences you want, but if you don’t fix your toxic thinking, then you are still sabotaging yourself. There’s no place for self-criticism, judgment, and self-doubt when you are trying to find recovery and healing. Seek any help that you might need to help “clean up” your thinking so that your mind is loving and compassionate towards yourself and doesn’t enforce negative thinking patterns.
- External stressors: Consider the impact that your work, social media consumption, and expectations from others have on your stress levels and self-image. If any of these bring in too much negativity or stress, then consider how you can adjust their scope in your life to be more manageable.
It is essential to create an environment conducive to recovery when you commit yourself to sobriety. An important step in the process of creating a strong foundation for healing and recovery is to evaluate if any negative influences are working against your recovery and remove them from your life. If you or someone you know is struggling to get or remain sober, contact us at Avalon Malibu. At Avalon, we take a holistic approach to your recovery treatment and specialize in treating co-occurring disorders. Let Avalon help you overcome the challenges preventing you from living a life of joy and fulfillment. Call us today at (844) 857-5992.
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