Setting Course: Self-Binding Techniques in Early Recovery

Drugs tend to be a cash business and if you don’t have cash, purchasing drugs becomes a trickier prospect. To optimize your chances of resisting the urge to buy, avoid having cash available; set up direct deposit for your paycheck, cut up your ATM card, and urge any loved ones offering you financial support to pay service providers directly. There are also specialized financial products specifically designed for the needs of addicts and their families; the Next Step Prepaid Mastercard allows a family member to load and monitor the card, which can’t be used in liquor stores, bars, casinos, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, or other places where it may be inadvisable for an addict to make purchases. The card also can’t be used to withdraw cash, preventing you from making clandestine purchases.

Drugs or alcohol used to take up a lot of your time—the planning, the using, the comedown, the regret all served to fill time and create a structure around which to live. Residential treatment temporarily replaced that structure with an intensive recovery framework that kept you occupied as you began your sobriety. Now, it’s up to you to create a structure that will fortify you against using. Boredom is recognized as one of the most powerful relapse triggers and staying busy can be a vital part of maintaining sobriety through these early stages. Fill up your time with healthy activities like exercising, working, meditating, reading, and socializing. Take this opportunity to rediscover interests you had before your addiction took over or to find new passions. Write down a list of things you want to do, make a schedule for yourself, and set realistic, healthy goals. For many, 12-step meetings serve as a profoundly useful means of strengthening early recovery while also providing concrete structure and activity.

Ending or modifying relationships with the people we used to use with is an obvious if difficult step for many recovering addicts. When we’ve worked so hard to achieve these early stages of sobriety, the last thing we want to do is surround ourselves with people who are using. However, other types of relationships can also increase vulnerability to relapse, particularly any stressful, contentious, or troubled interpersonal relationships with family, friends, or co-workers that leave you emotionally distressed. While you do not have to cut everyone who ever upset you out of your life, being mindful of who you spend time with at this stage can help you keep yourself safe and minimize your chances of relapse. Sometimes this may mean limiting contact even with people who are very valuable to you; for example, a dear friend of mine couldn’t handle talking to her mom for the first 6 months of her recovery because the risk of emotional explosiveness was too high. Remember, your sobriety comes first, and putting potentially damaging relationships on pause can help you establish the stability you need to stay clean.

Recovering from addiction involves thoughtful examination of the emotional routines that inform your substance abuse. However, our day-to-day behavioral routines are also typically infused with triggers and reminders of a well-established pattern of addiction, whether it’s passing by a certain bar on the way home from work, reaching for our dealer’s phone number on a Friday night, or structuring your workday in a way that allows you to hide your use, the habits of addiction are often so ingrained in us that they become second nature. While part of recovery is learning how to cope with inevitable triggers, it is also prudent to remove unnecessary triggers by changing your daily routine in a way that minimizes cravings, nostalgia, or distress; for example, I can no longer drink coffee in the mornings because I obsess over wanting a cigarette the whole time. One of my co-workers takes a different route home after going out to dinner or to the theater because her usual walk through the entertainment district was spent in an acute state of cocaine craving. Specifically, what you change and how drastic the change must be depends on your own unique circumstances; you know yourself best and can design a life for yourself that honors your needs.