How to Find Motivation to Stay Sober When You’re Extremely Tempted to Break

Given that one in seven people will face an addiction at some point, it’s important that we make room in our lives for people struggling.

If you’re someone who is dealing with addiction or love someone who is, one of the best ways to stay sober is to find something else to put that energy into. When the temptation arises to break that sobriety, knowing how to get motivated to stay on track is essential.

Here are seven of the most reliable ways to find motivation when all of the pressure is on.

1. Enroll in a Program

If you’re struggling with any kind of addiction, staying sober is hard. When you’ve got pressures of work, family, and everyday life coming back to you after rehabilitation and recovery, you can feel challenged daily. If you don’t have a network or a system in place for dealing with issues, you could find yourself buried under your problems.

If you’ve already gotten sober, it was likely with the help of a program or a support network. If you have something like a sponsor or an advisor who you can count on, you should have them become your main contact when you’re overwhelmed. Having a friend who understands what you’re going through is valuable in figuring out how to maintain your sobriety.

Enrolling in an addiction recovery program or signing up for a support group can be the first step to maintaining balance in your life. Many people end up with addiction issues because they get overwhelmed by the little things that stress us out during the day. Those things can never be completely left behind so we need to find ways to deal.

When you have a program, you have structure and systems for dealing with pressure. Instead of having to find solutions on your own, you can rely on people who know what you’re going through. If you’re looking for a program to help you stay sober, read more here.

2. Connect With Old Friends

One of the most common negative impacts of an addiction is that you can end up in conflict with people who you care for. If that’s happened to you, you need to work on rebuilding your relationships and connecting with old friends. Sometimes addiction can get in the way of friendship, causing you to choose a substance or an activity over your friendships.

Perhaps you have some apologizing to do. Your best friends would never turn down a chance to catch up and to talk about how you can repair your friendships. If there are people you haven’t seen in a while, you could catch up with them.

Getting together with friends who really care about you means that you won’t have to worry about your sobriety. If they really care, they’ll want to do everything they can to encourage you to stay sober for longer.

When you reconnect with friends, you can pick up some of your older hobbies, so long as they’re healthy. If you used to play football, go for runs, bike rides, or camping with your friends, now’s the time you can pick that all up again. It’ll be good for your body and soul to reconnect with things you used to love alongside people who care about you and miss you.

3. Finish That Big Project

It’s hard to focus on big projects when you’re struggling to stay sober. Many people turn to abuse substances or addictive behaviors when they’re having trouble taking on hard work or they hit a wall with something.

If you’re a painter or a songwriter, you can easily get hit with a creative block that can keep you from playing another note or brushing another stroke. Writer’s block is familiar to just about every writer who’s ever picked up a pen. Those creative blocks are hard to get over when you’re struggling to say sober.

Sobriety can be your secret weapon when you’re trying to achieve big things.

If you’ve thought about starting your own business, it’s a hard thing to do when you’re struggling with your sobriety. There’s no time to juggle both the challenges of starting a new venture when you’re maintaining an addiction. Often you’re faced with the task of choosing one or the other, and the addiction usually wins.

Now that you’re sober, you can stay that way with the rewarding feeling you get from taking on a big project you never thought possible before.

4. Focus on Your Job

Your boss, your team, and your coworkers will welcome your newfound sobriety. Not only will you be more alert during your workday, but you’ll contribute more to your team and be available to take on new tasks. This will make work easier for everyone and help to increase demand for people to work with you.

When you have more responsibilities at work, it’s harder to let yourself feel okay with letting people down. Staying sober will be easy when you know how many people are relying on you.

If you work at a small business, startup, or a growing enterprise, you can help your company to succeed by staying sober. The more time and energy you devote to your job, the better of an asset you can be to everyone.

Set goals that you want to achieve with the company that you work for. Find new ways to grow and new skills that you can learn. With more focus and because you’re feeling better about yourself every day, you can achieve your goals easier than ever before.

5. Help Out With Your Family

Everyone has a complicated family who finds themselves in need from time to time. When you were struggling with your sobriety, your family probably helped you to get through those first difficult steps to better health. Now it’s time for you to pay them back for their help.

If you have an older family member who is struggling with mobility due to their age, help them to get around or help out by assisting them with chores. Maybe they don’t get to go to the grocery store as often as they’d like to. Now you can help them out by taking them there.

Some of your family members might find that their age gets in the way of doing the things they love to do. Older family members might love to garden but might not be able to do all of the nitty-gritty work. Help give them something to look forward to every day by helping them to plant the seeds that they’ll get out to water for the coming summer.

6. Find New Hobbies

Nothing can distract you from your struggles like an exciting new hobby. When you’re managing an addiction, it’s hard to find time for such frivolous things as a hobby. Now you can make time for something you’ve always wanted to do.

Find a healthy hobby that helps you to get out and interact with nature or with people. If you’ve always thought about trying birdwatching, this might be the time for you to go on the hunt for those rare birds that might visit your area. For people who like to be more active, the rush of mountain biking or long distance riding could be everything that you used to get from your addiction.

While you don’t need to replace your addiction with something that’s high energy or high intensity, you should find something that excites you.

If you’ve always wanted to start a band, now could be the time for you to get things moving. People can always make room for a good drummer, bass player, or a lead singer at every level of the music scene. Even if you’re an amateur, you could be the right fit for a group of other musicians who can’t do what you do.

7. Make Time For Travel

Addictions are usually a drain on your bank account. When you’re paying for a drug or alcohol addiction or losing your money to a gambling addiction, you could be spending that money on a life-changing experience. Traveling is probably the best way to make use of that time and money.

Staying sober is easy when you’re traveling with your family and friends. It’s even easier if you don’t know the Spanish or French word for your favorite addictive substance or activity.

When you take time to travel, you learn about yourself and how you relate to the world around you. That self-discovery can be motivation enough to help you stay sober.

Trying to Stay Sober is Difficult For Everyone

Whether you’re the one trying to stay sober or if you’re helping a friend, there are so many factors that could challenge sobriety. Staying sober in the modern world is difficult for people who have to work more than 40 hours a week while juggling a family and balancing a social life. By finding ways to alleviate the pressure, people can stay sober for years to come.

If you or a loved one are struggling to even figure out if it’s time to work on an addiction, check out our guide for info.