Transitioning Back to the Real World after Living in a Sober Community for 1 Year

You got a taste of freedom while recovering in a sober living community, and now it is time to rejoin the real world. Transitioning back into full independence may seem easier than when you went from an inpatient facility to a sober living community, but don’t get ahead of yourself. Temper your pace. It’s entirely too common for people recovering from addiction to fall back into old habits, often influenced by the communities they choose to rejoin. Develop the tools you need to successfully build a new world for yourself and live a sober lifestyle. Adopt healthy living habits and partake in activities that improve your quality of life before transitioning.

How Many People Relapse After Leaving Sober Living Homes?

We account for those who were successful in their lives post-addiction and those who have successfully stayed sober. Real Recovery Sober Living supplies our members with the tools and resources for managing their sobriety. The numbers speak for themselves, as we mentioned in our blog, How to Transition from an In-Patient Facility to a Sober Living Home:

• • 93% of alumni remained sober 90 days after completing the program
  • 89% remained sober at least six months after graduating from a Real Recovery program
  • 81% remained sober for a year or more after completing all three phases of our program
  • 88% of alumni achieved the milestone of two years of sobriety
  • 87% of alumni who relapsed within six months also reduced or stopped attending meetings
  • 95% of alumni with at least one year of sobriety actively sponsored others in recovery

Sober Living Communities vs. Sobriety in the Real World

Sober living communities like Real Recovery Sober Living provide a residential space, speaking forums, and a structured program for you to follow during your recovery. Out in the “real world,” you will have to manage all this for yourself. Transitioning from a background of alcohol or substance use disorders, the task ahead may seem impossible. How do you juggle sobriety, meetings, making an income, managing a living space, and so much more?

Sober living homes operate by design to transition you into independent life by giving you the skills you need to stay sober and become a healthier version of yourself successfully.

8 Tips for Avoiding Relapse after Leaving a Sober Living Community

During your time in a sober living community, you’ll learn quite a few tools and strategies that will transfer with you. These should help you remain sober and avoid relapse while transitioning back into society. Let’s go over a few of them.

1. Avoid Reconnecting with Toxic Relationships

Our first tip for preventing relapse when leaving a sober living program is to avoid reconnecting with previous friendships or flings that influenced your addiction. Although you are healthy now, these types of relationships can act as a conduit for rekindling bad habits, including drinking alcohol and using substances.

The best alternative is to create new bonds and friendships with people who represent and align with your updated lifestyle. While recovering in a sober living community, you will meet many others experiencing similar conditions. You will work alongside them for the benefit of all of you. A person recovering from an addiction is as strong as the community that surrounds and supports them.

If you are driven to reconnect with those from your past who live a life of addiction or other unhealthy habits, do so with extreme caution. Though we recommend against this, it’s up to you to set proper boundaries for yourself. If you do choose to rekindle those relationships, be sure to remind yourself of the community you were once part of, how you felt while in that community, and compare it to how you feel now. Take a minute to ask yourself: “Why am I seeking out these relationships?” An answer should present itself, and now that you are not clouded by alcohol or substance use, the right decision will likely become clear.

2. Avoid Returning to Toxic Environments

Our second tip is similar to our first. Prevent relapse by avoiding environments that could trigger your addiction. This means avoiding old hangouts, like trap houses or your dealer’s place. Similarly, steer clear of bars, liquor stores, and situations where you are surrounded by others who are drinking or using. This is in line with the saying, “out of sight out of mind”; cliché as it is, it works.

Avoiding unhealthy environments and destructive people is a good start after transitioning. Like cleaning out your house, this process is you cleaning out your bad habits. It is a regular process you must maintain; otherwise, you will find yourself surrounded by toxic relationships and environments sooner than expected.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Rely on Your Support System

Our third tip for managing sobriety after transitioning from a sober living community concerns the opposite end of the environmental spectrum: don’t be afraid to rely on your support system. The members of your support system watched you grow throughout recovery and know your natural behavior. They can recognize behavior that would be out of the norm for you. Like a child first learning how to ride a bike by using training wheels, you are learning how to stay sober in relatively new environments.

Who is in your support system? A support system is made up of close relationships – people who you rely on for emotional and informational support. These relationships often include:

• • Family
  • Friends
  • Your sponsor
  • Your therapist
  • Mentors
  • Your peers in sobriety
  • Your physician and other treatment professionals

Recognize who you are closest to, who is receptive to you sharing your struggles, and who will confirm your feelings. Recovering from an alcohol or substance use disorder does not need to be a challenge that you face in isolation. The community you surround yourself with can help take on the brunt of problems that arise throughout your healing process.

4. Exercise Positively Impacts Your Sobriety

Our fourth tip is to live an active and balanced life. Exercise is a proven strategy for improving your overall wellness, clearly supported by physicians across the world. The benefits of living an active, healthy life through exercise that are relevant to sobriety can include:

• • Improving your mental health and mood
  • Reducing stress
  • Reducing the risk of depression
  • Maintaining sharp thinking and judgment skills
  • Building relationships with friends and family by exercising together
  • Encouraging fun activities

Where alcohol and substance use debilitate your energy, impacting your physical and mental health, exercise boosts it. Exercise breaks the cycles of depression and addiction and encourages you to spend more time with family and friends. How you choose to exercise is up to you; find the best habits for your needs. Getting out once a day for an hour at a time and being physically active will keep you well-rounded and strong.

5. Regularly Attend Recovery Meetings

While spending time in a sober living community, you’ll learn the importance of regularly attending recovery-related meetings. You’ll learn how others affected by the same disease share many similar experiences. Hearing these experiences, as well as you sharing yours, will build a common bond between you and your peers in sobriety. These meetings provide you with a safe space to share stories you would otherwise feel uncomfortable sharing, especially with people who have not shared your experiences.

These community meetings typically follow a programmed method of transitioning recovery. Continuing to follow the program in and outside of these meetings — and in and outside of a sober living community — provides you with a method of staying sober, including knowing what to do in the case of relapse. Recovery-based programs can provide social accountability, tools to avoid spiraling into relapse, and the encouragement to pursue a new recovery method if you falter.

6. Focus Your Time on a Career or an Education

The world does not slow down while you are in recovery. Though both daily life and recovery are a marathon and not a sprint, you can still get a running start. A crucial question you will ask and answer when transitioning to the real world is: “What comes next?” What comes next is life. At Real Recovery Sober Living, we require you to either find a part-time job or enroll in school. This rule is set in place to give you a head start after leaving a sober living community and to bide your time while recovering.

In either a job or school, you will meet new faces and build new relationships. Choosing those that represent a healthy lifestyle is important, rather than returning to toxic relationships.

7. Meticulously Follow a Routine and Schedule

Alcohol and substance dependence and addiction often cause you to struggle with following a day-to-day routine and schedule. Instead, your days may be spent thinking about, planning, and finding your next drink or fix.

A healthy mindset during transitioning that does not depend on your drinking or using requires following a routine and schedule. This method of living grounds you back to reality successfully. From the start of the day until its end, you have tasks and goals for you to set out to complete.

Building a schedule takes time during transitioning. An organized routine will revolve around different parts of your day, breaking it up into the morning, afternoon, and evening. A routine and schedule keep you accountable to yourself and others. How you prioritize your time matters during transitioning .

8. Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Our last tip for avoiding relapse after transitioning a sober living community is to practice meditation. Like following a routine, practicing meditation can ground you. Meditation offers a block of time for you to let your mind roam free of worry and stress.

According to a published article by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the results of practicing mindful meditation while recovering from alcohol or substance use disorder to prevent relapse can include:

• • Promotion of cognitive control over automaticity
  • Restructuring of reward
  • Decreasing stress reactivity

Mindfulness meditation enables you to reset your mind at any time of day you choose to practice it.

Once you’ve made it transitioning through detox, treatment, and a sober living community, the next step is to transition back into independent living – “the real world.” Intimidating though it may seem, you can head into this next chapter in your life bolstered by a wide variety of support in the forms of your peers, community meetings, mental health professionals, and other continuing care resources.

At Real Recovery, we welcome those who are serious about their recovery, and we are happy to help you transition from your treatment facility to our sober living homes, where we’ll work with you on an individual level to prepare for the transition back home. As Florida’s largest provider of sober living beds and highest rated sober living home, Real Recovery offers a safe and stable environment with a strong community support system to help men successfully transitioning back into the rest of their lives. To learn more about achieving long-term sobriety, call our recovery specialists at (727) 290-9156.