How to Maintain Sobriety After Addiction Recovery

An Equation for Staying Sober

Don’t panic, this is not a maths class! We are going to start with an equation but I promise there’ll be no differential calculus.  

Based on all the interviews I’ve done with the sober superstars, I’ve identified the things they all do and I wanted to express that as simply as possible. So I turned to maths and came up with: 

S=RC+TM+EQxC

Yes, I’ve managed to reduce addiction recovery to 12 symbols. 

Unfortunately, on its own, it doesn’t mean much, so let’s unpack it.

S = Sober

Which you had probably worked out. 

RC = Recovery Capital 

That’s the basic life stuff that you need to have to stay sober. In essence, it’s all the stuff anyone needs to live. It’s things like housing, money and transport but also health and access to health care. 

TM = Trigger Management

Trigger management is a more positive way of saying relapse prevention. I’ve found that how well you learn to manage the triggers, to confront your thoughts about drinking, depends a lot on the method you used to stop. 

EQ = Emotional Intelligence 

You’ve probably heard the idea that we don’t grow when we’re drinking, for me that definitely meant that my emotional intelligence did not increase. All the sober superstars I’ve met have developed strong Emotional Quotient or EQ. 

C = Connection. 

In its simplest sense that means addiction support but it’s so much more than that. Connection is life: the way we relate to other people has such a huge impact, not only on our enjoyment of life, but also it makes a difference to how long we live.

To write it out long hand, the sober formula is: 

Sober = Recovery Capital + Trigger Management + Emotional Intelligence x Connection. 

I know that sounds like a lot, like you’ve got a huge to-do list but don’t panic, you don’t have to do it all today. In fact, you probably don’t need to do it. Let’s get into it and figure out where to start. 

The Bedrock of Addiction Recovery

Abraham Maslow was a smart guy. He created something called the hierarchy of needs. He introduced a very simple yet powerful idea to psychology: there’s no point in helping people to create meaningful relationships or build self-esteem if they don’t have a roof over their head. 

I know that sounds kind of obvious, but before Maslow introduced the hierarchy of needs, therapists often ignored some pretty basic stuff. 

But now we have no excuse. 

The first element of a sober lifestyle must revolve around the basics. If you don’t have food, water and somewhere to sleep tonight, then little else will matter. Once your bodily needs are taken care of you should consider safety. How secure is your source of food and shelter? 

Assuming that you are lucky enough to live in one of the richer parts of the world then you can probably take security for granted, therefore, your safety comes down to the long term stability of your income, transport and accommodation. 

I’m optimistic that you have all of those things. I only mention it because most “experts” don’t, they assume you have all of that. But without those basics, nothing else will help. 

And if you do have all that stuff in place, great! You have a lot to be grateful for, my friend. 

Health and Alcohol-Free Living

Along with the basic nuts and bolts of life, there’s health. Without health, life is not much fun. 

There are several health complaints that go hand in hand with heavy drinking. 

Alcohol prevents the absorption of several key vitamins and has a huge impact on your digestion. While I wholeheartedly believe that your vitamins should come from food, in the short term, you may want to consider vitamin supplements. You might also want to focus on gut-friendly stuff like prebiotics and fermented food. 

Alcohol has a big impact on sleep too. I found my sleep improved when I stopped drinking, but some people struggle with it. If you need to, do some research and get some help, sleep is so important to your energy levels and overall health. 

Alcohol can exacerbate mental health problems and mask neurodivergence issues. This is obviously a huge area but it’s a crucial one to address. The good news is that sobriety gives you the platform to get started. 

Sadly, many people end their drinking careers with bigger health problems. By the time I stopped, I’d given myself gout. Other people get diabetes or dental problems. Whatever the problems are, they should be among the first to get addressed. 

All of which leads us to a deeper point, you need good access to healthcare – it’s fundamental to building recovery capital. How you access it will depend on your situation, but if you are struggling with this then it’s an important starting point. 

That’s a brief overview of recovery capital. Let’s move to the next area: trigger management. 

The Key to Relapse Prevention

You can’t get rid of triggers. And you can’t avoid them. 

There are just too many things in the world that will remind you of alcohol. There are the adverts, the memes on social media, the birthday cards not to mention people actually drinking around you. 

But that’s all the stuff you can see, what about the things you can feel? Emotions often make us want to drink, whether it’s anger and sadness or even happiness and celebration. We can’t banish these, nor would we want to. 

Which is why we call it trigger management: you can’t remove the triggers; you can only manage them. 

It all starts with belief. Most people don’t realise that their beliefs dictate their behaviour. 

That’s not my belief: the science is clear. Believing that alcohol will provide you with a positive experience is correlated with the amount you drink. In fact, believing that alcohol provides a benefit even affects treatment outcomes. 

Which is a fancy way of saying that if you don’t change your beliefs, you will still crave alcohol and therefore be more likely to relapse. 

How do you change your beliefs? To start with you have to realise they are there. You must bring them out into the light. We don’t do this often (or maybe even never). The things that people often believe about alcohol revolve around stuff like stress, socialising, relationships, boredom, sex, creativity, even trust.

Once you’ve identified them then you need to start questioning them. Are they true? Does alcohol really help you handle stress or was it the main cause of stress in your life? If it’s not true you definitely shouldn’t believe it. If you are not sure, then ask if it’s serving you, is that belief helping you become the person you want to be? 

It’s a big subject, way bigger than a few hundred words, but it’s an important one. The sober superstars all address their beliefs about alcohol, one way or another. 

Embracing Mindful Sobriety

If you no longer believe that alcohol offers you any benefit or pleasure, then why on earth would you drink it? 

Addressing our beliefs can be enough to change our behaviour, but often we need a little bit more help. And that’s where mindfulness comes in. 

Mindfulness is just another way of saying becoming more aware. In this case, it’s all about becoming more aware of your thoughts. 

Let’s say you’re at a party and people are drinking beer. Even if you don’t believe beer is going to enhance your life, you might still think “Oh, I could go for a beer right now”. Don’t panic though, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s to be expected. 

Over the decades you were drinking, you went to many parties and drank on many social occasions. In essence, you trained your brain to think, “Let’s have a beer” in situations like that. It’s not your brain's fault that it continues to think that way. 

The key point is, relapses are not about thinking, “Let’s have a beer”. Relapses are about drinking the beer. The problem is action not the thought, so you need to get between the thought and the action. 

You need to train your brain to think something different. I’m a big fan of empowering phrases, things like: “Isn’t it great I don’t have to drink that anymore”, “Real Men Quit!” or the old spiritual famously quoted by Martin Luther King “Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last”. 

Every time you see alcohol, smell alcohol or think about it in any way, repeat the phrase in your head. That will help you get between the thought and the action. 

Again, trigger management and mindfulness are huge subjects and ones we’ll explore in more detail in articles to come. 

But now let’s move on to emotional intelligence. 

The Language of Life After Alcohol

Emotional intelligence is an equally huge subject, covering areas like social skills, self-regulation, self-awareness, empathy and motivation. Even a halfway decent overview is probably beyond the scope of this article. 

But it’s an area that all the sober superstars excel in. I am convinced that is one of the most important areas of sobriety, yet it is often only hinted at when talking about self-awareness. 

How do you get started? 

I think the easiest way to approach it is by beginning to learn the language. For too many people the range of emotions runs from mad to glad, via sad. They lack the words to describe how they really feel. In short, the emotional illiteracy rates are pretty low.

Finding more accurate ways to describe how you feel is a great gateway to increased emotional awareness. If your emotions just remain a confused jumble, then you’ll never learn to live happily with them. If you can describe them in detail, then you can begin to unpick the tangle. 

There are many websites out there that will help you understand the difference between jealousy and envy. I particularly recommend Brene Brown’s amazing book “Atlas of the Heart”. Partly because it’s awesome and partly because she has over 30 years of sober time. 

What’s Your Sobriety Motivation?

By far the easiest way to stay sober is to enjoy it.

Have you ever noticed you tend to do the things that are pleasurable and ignore the ones that are just a chore? Of course you have, you know that if it’s fun, it gets done. 

How do you increase your enjoyment of sobriety? 

Mindset is important, that’s why it’s so important to get to grips with your beliefs about drinking. If you no longer believe that drinking is fun, then you’ll no longer miss doing it – that makes not drinking a whole lot more fun. 

But there’s also more things you enjoy doing.

I have to admit that I’m lucky. Sitting here, writing this and drinking a delicious cup of coffee doesn’t exactly feel like work, it’s certainly not coal mining. I do know that not everybody can do that. You probably have to do things at work that you don’t enjoy. 

What’s the answer? Try to do more of the things you enjoy and try to enjoy more of the things you do. 

You can do more of the things you enjoy by making time. I get that not everyone has total control over their time, but I bet you can find five minutes in every day. So do that, find a few minutes every day to do something you enjoy. You deserve some “me time”.

You can enjoy more of what you do by shifting your thinking. Reframe a traffic jam as extra time to listen to podcasts or audio books. Reassess hovering as time to reflect on the day. Rebrand spending time with that annoying colleague by imagining how terrible it must be to have to be them. 

Trust me, the more enjoyable you can make sober living the easier it gets. One of the best ways to do that is to involve other people. Let's take a look at our old friend connection. 

What Does Addiction Support Really Look Like? 

When many sober people think about connection they think about group programmes. Even the people who have never been to a group programme, still think of them when you start talking about connection. 

But there is way more to connection than going to group. 

Don’t get me wrong, sober communities can be a great place to find support. And if it’s working for you don’t let me stand in your way. 

What I want to do is challenge the idea that you must connect with other sober people. It has advantages, for some people it’s a real lifesaver, but it’s not the only path. I’ve met plenty of sober superstars that have never joined sober communities. 

What do they do? 

Firstly, they work hard at the trigger management stuff which we talked about earlier. That means that they can enjoy being sober within their existing social circle. 

Secondly, they tend to gravitate towards places where people are sober rather than towards people who never drink. That’s a subtle difference so let me unpack it. 

I go skating every Friday night. I love it. In fact, you’re lucky that this article is not called “Skate Yourself Sober”. I’ve made plenty of friends there, the kind of people who are understanding and don’t laugh at you if you fall on your ass. 

I have no idea whether they drink or not – it doesn’t matter – because when we’re skating, no one is drinking. 

That’s the difference, it’s a group where everyone is sober at the time, rather than a group where everyone is sober all the time. Does it really matter how someone behaves when they aren’t around you? If they don’t drink or talk about drinking when they’re with you, life is good. 

OK, you don’t like skating, I get it, there are plenty of other alternatives. Many clubs don’t revolve around alcohol: music groups, political organisations, art and craft societies and some sports teams.  

I say some sports teams because you have to be careful. True, no one plays sports drunk, but some clubs have a drinking problem off the pitch, I’m calling out running and rugby for starters. Gaze before you go.

Finding Your Sober Inspiration

Life is about people. 

I spent ten years as a firefighter and people often ask me if I miss it. 

They think I’ll miss the excitement and the challenge, the bravery and the heroism, looking really good in the uniform. But that’s not it, not really, I miss the guys. 

Sure, I miss doing some amazing things with them, but I also miss having fun with them, telling jokes and trusting people so much you’d run into a burning building with them. I miss the people. 

Because life is about connection. When Johan Hari said, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it’s connection”, what he meant was you have to have someone worth staying sober for. 

Because relationships are not just a source of joy, they are the vital inspiration to stay sober. 

Obviously, it is important to remain sober for yourself, because your life is better that way, but a slice of motivation can come from other people. We want to stay sober for our partners, our children, our parents. Heck, the reason I got sober was for a child that we hadn’t even conceived yet. 

Who’s inspiring you to not just stay sober but to be better? 

Making Your Sober Lifestyle Add Up

Let’s recap the sober equation: 

Sober = Recovery Capital + Trigger Management + Emotional Intelligence x Connection. 

Which is a lot of work. In fact, it’s life’s work. I understand that there’s a huge potential for overwhelm. Where do you start your life’s work? 

Start with your number one problem. 

It’s hard for me to give you a clear starting point without understanding where you are now, but what follows is an attempt to give you a handle on where to begin. 

Start with recovery capital: do you have a secure income, accommodation and transport? Do you have good health and access to healthcare? If you have any problem with those, then that’s probably the place to start. 

How do you get on managing triggers? If this is causing you a lot of problems, then it’s probably the right place to start.

What if you have sorted out recovery capital and trigger management but still struggling with other people? Do you need to focus on emotional intelligence or connection? The short answer is this, if you are struggling with deep meaningful relationships then focus on emotional intelligence, but if you’re struggling with friendship and being more active in your community then think about connection. 

In truth, building a sober life is something that you can’t completely simplify to a few thousand words, because building a meaningful life is complicated. It has challenged the greatest minds in history, it’s an ongoing and ever evolving process. 

But there are two things that really matter. One, get sober. 

And two, get started. Doing something that’s not quite idea,l is way better than not doing the perfect thing. 

Get going, and don’t forget to enjoy the ride.