I Can Get Sober but I Can’t Stay Sober. What Am I Doing Wrong?

If you are reading this, you have likely been to multiple treatment centers, followed by sober living and monitoring programs for accountability, yet you still struggle with staying sober. This can leave you feeling guilty, ashamed and hopeless. Perhaps you believe you are “constitutionally incapable,” as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes. Regardless, you are well aware of what you “should” be doing to maintain sobriety.

I would like to challenge you on these beliefs and help you find your own path to recovery. There are many reasons relapse occurs: unresolved trauma, untreated anxiety and low self-esteem, to name a few. These are the three biggest obstacles I believe contribute to relapse.

Low tolerance for feeling uncomfortable

Most people who suffer from addiction began using at a young age. This creates a “freezing” of emotional coping. I have often heard it explained as waking up one day and finding out you’re an adult with no clue what you’re doing. It takes time to build your coping skills, and meanwhile there are a lot of uncomfortable moments.

I can help you develop better coping skills while you’re building tolerance.

Building a life to be sober for

Often people get sober and feel lost; they go through an identity crisis. They are told to get an unfulfilling job and just focus on staying sober. The problem is that you start to believe this is what a sober life looks like, and you get discouraged quickly. Although I agree recovery has to be a priority and working is essential to survival, I also believe that if the identity crisis is not addressed, it is easier to relapse. Letting go of the old image and creating a new one can help you fight for recovery. Creating a life you want to be sober for gives you something you might lose if you don’t stay sober.

I can help you find the new you.

Self-defeating beliefs leading to self-sabotage

Our belief systems are developed from the perspective of a child, and they have been with you so long you don’t really know they are influencing you. Sabotage is the sustaining of beliefs. People who suffer from substance use disorders are often talented at living in a contradiction, which always seems to end in some form of sabotage.

For example, you may have a fear of failure and, equally, a fear of success. The response is either to overcompensate by working ten times harder than anyone else until you burn out and get yourself fired, or to become paralyzed by the contradiction and do nothing. Either way, you walk away sustaining the belief that you are a failure.

I can help you identify how you sabotage yourself. Learn more about relapse and recovery counseling.