Building Healthy Habits in Sobriety

Building Healthy Habits in Sobriety

Changing our behavior by integrating healthy habits in sobriety is relatively simple, but there are plenty of tools we can use to set men up for success. Habit-building is a practiced skill, which is why the team at Surfside places such a heavy emphasis on structure and accountability.  It’s not necessarily difficult to integrate a new habit into our routine, but it requires attention.  We’ll unpack how and why we develop new customs with men in our sober living. Books like Atomic Habits (one of our favorites) provided a roadmap for changing the way we act, think and feel.

A Community Approach to Habit-Building

There is a wealth of research that reveals our community profoundly influences what is attractive to us.  If we hang around people modeling that a life in sobriety can be fun and fulfilling, we’ll start to believe it. If we hang around people with behaviors that reveal sobriety isn’t great – or worse, we don’t create a community for ourselves at all… the idea of maintaining sobriety starts to look really unappealing.

James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” shares decades of research about human behavior and behavior modification. In a chapter titled, “The Role of Family and Friends in Shaping your Habits,” he dives into studies about group conformity. People often want to “fit in” with the group, which is something we often see in the early years of experimenting with substance use. But as humans, we’re also drawn to the behaviors of successful people. By building a network of both peers and folks that with a life we admire, sobriety begins to look more attractive. Many twelve step fellowships use the old adage, “If you want what I have, you’ll do what I do.”

By creating a space for men to explore new (or old) hobbies and activities, we’ve built a community of people with really full lives in sobriety. This community is easily accessible to folks, even the guys who are unsure about the idea of recovery. Because of the shared experience of struggling with substances, men already have something in common. Consciously creating a welcoming sober community at the Jersey Shore has helped many men overcome their initial concerns about sobriety.

Making Healthy Habits Easy

One of the simplest ways to integrate a new and healthy habit into a daily routine is to make it easy. Many of us want to avoid roadblocks, which means setting ourselves up for success might take a little extra thinking on the front end. Fortunately, an addiction treatment program that has a team to assist here can go a long way. Here are some quick examples:

If we know that prayer and meditation are at the heart of a 12-step program and can center our thoughts, how can we integrate this into our daily life? At Surfside, this is simple: it happens in the living room, with the community, daily. Men we respect, like our house managers, case managers or Program Director, participate in the same behaviors as residents in the program. This simple meeting in the living room sets us up for an amazing habit of self-reflection every morning. All we need to do is get out of bed.

By creating an environment that supports positive actions and healthy habits, it becomes easier to take these actions moving forward. But creating an environment where negative habits are uncomfortable is also part of the process.  If we know that not making our bed or completing our assigned chore brings a negative consequence, we’re more likely to just do it. The negative consequence may be as simple as a firm talk with a case manager, but it’s enough motivation to complete the task. 

Finally, research shows that it’s much easier to build new habits in a new environment because we don’t have to fight against the little things that we associate with old habits. A structured sober living or extended care like Surfside offers the opportunity to stop moving on autopilot and build an entirely new set of habits. There’s a reason that treatment centers have spent years hammering home the concept of changing people, places and things.