If you’re in recovery from an alcohol or substance use disorder (AUD/SUD) and you make any New Year’s resolutions this year, then our first message to you – is this:
We’re proud of you – recovery is not easy.
If you’re heading into your first holiday season and new year in recovery, we have another message for you:
You can do it – and it can help make your recovery even stronger.z
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We’re thinking of this in terms of New Year’s Resolutions, really. That’s what this article is about: using resolutions as a way to reaffirm your commitment to the recovery process and affirm your confidence in your ability to achieve sustainable, lifelong recovery.
You can read about New Year’s resolution statistics in this informative article here.
While many people think New Year’s resolutions are a waste of time, we disagree. Well, they can be, sure, if you don’t make the right ones. But if you make the right resolutions, and have a plan to make them stick – like the one we’ll outline below – then they can work in your favor.
Why?
Because resolutions include an important recovery priniciple:
You can’t think your way to recovery, you have to act – or behave – your way to recovery.
Resolutions, by their very nature, are about changing actions and behavior. You desire a specific outcome, so you resolve to change the things you do to bring about the outcome you want. Sounds like a template for recovery, doesn’t it?
And like your recovery, you’re more likely to succeed at your resolutions if you have a realistic plan in place, ahead of time, to accomplish them. Before we share our three tips for making resolutions that stick, we want to remind you of something very important. When you make your resolutions, and work on keeping them in the new year, prioritize being kind to yourself. Sure, you may default to being your own worst critic, but this year, we want you to work in something else, in addition: being your own best support system.
Please keep that in mind as you make – and pursue – your resolutions for the new year.
The Resolutions You Make in Recovery Can Last
This is our best advice on how to make resolutions that support three criteria: they don’t threaten your recovery, they allow you to be kind to yourself, and they increase your overall recovery skills. We think those criteria are important to keep in mind, because, after all, the most important resolution is the one we assume you already made: stay in recovery and stay on your program, one day at a time, in 2024.
How to Make Your Resolutions Stick When You’re in Recovery
1. Make resolutions flexible.
Flexibility and recovery go hand in hand. Some days things don’t go the way you want, and you have to adjust. You might not be able to get to a morning meeting, so you change plans and go to an afternoon meeting. It may be a little bit of a hassle, but no problem, you can handle it. The same is true for resolutions. You need to be flexible, and they need to be flexible, or they’ll probably cause more stress than they’re worth.
For instance, if you resolve to exercise every morning before work, and one day you oversleep and can’t make that happen, you have options. Work out at lunch, work out in the afternoon, or work out after dinner. You still get your workout in, and you prove to yourself that if things don’t go exactly as planned every day, you can still meet your goals and keep your resolutions.
2. Make resolutions realistic.
This is crucial. If you put resolutions beyond your reach, then you set yourself up for frustration and potential failure. However, if you make them practical, realistic, and achievable, you increase your chance of success. Not too easy though: you want goals or resolutions to be just beyond where you are now, but within reach with some work. You want to set yourself up for success, but at the same time, a challenge with a managed or manageable risk of failure is a safe way to raise the stakes and motivate you to make change.
With that said, every day in recovery is a victory, and yes, this is one instance where if you show up and do the work, the participation trophy you get – your ongoing recovery – has real value.
3. Make resolutions simple.
If you can clarify your goals and distill what you want something simple, then that makes the entire goal setting and goal achieving process possible. Life can get complicated all by itself. A simple resolution requires focused action, which can help bring a sense of purpose to your days, or bring meaning to your daily activities.
For example, if your resolution revolves around saving more money next year, clarify and simplify that: set a realistic amount to set aside each week or each month. And if things don’t go exactly as planned – unexpected expenses, unpaid sick days, other unknowns – see tips #1 and #2 above: you stay flexible, and adjust your plans given the circumstances, and keep things realistic, which means missing one day or covering one unexpected expense might not have a significant impact on your goal in the first place.
What Matter Most in 2024: Your Recovery
We all know how it feels when we keep a promise we make to ourselves: it increases our self-esteem, increases belief we can do it again, and proves to us that we can do the things we set out to do. One thing that can happen is that your good days can become reinforcing, meaning that the more good days you have, the better you feel, and the more motivated you become to do the things that make the days good. In terms of resolutions during recovery – meaning the promises you make to yourself – that means the longer you stick with the resolutions you make during recovery, the more likely it becomes that you’ll keep them throughout the year.
That’s why you make them simple, achievable, and flexible. That’s why you break them down into concrete actions you can complete every day, or every week. You create a scenario wherein the promises you make are promises you can keep, and can gain momentum until the associated actions feel like a regular part of your daily life.
And if you get off track, you lead with kindness – to yourself – then recalibrate and restart. Do that one day at a time, one concrete action at a time, one goal at a time, and one resolution at a time, and by this time next year, you’ll be amazed at what you’ve achieved.