What about the countless promises that you were going to do better only to fall short again? Sobriety is an opportunity to become the son, daughter, parent or friend that you’ve always wanted to be. Now you finally get a chance to repair the harm you caused in the past as a result of drinking and using. If you’re considering going back to addiction, consider how bad it sucked to be physically addicted!

If you’re in recovery from a substance use disorder, you already know how much work it took to achieve sobriety, and you’ll want to do everything possible to avoid having a relapse. It may seem that relapse is the last thing that could happen to you, but the truth is they are very common for people new to recovery. You have people reasons to stay sober who look up to you, even if you don’t realize it right now. When you stay sober, you allow yourself to become an inspiration for other people, especially those who are considering becoming clean and sober. Even if you continue to go to work, your performance will eventually suffer under the effects of substance abuse.

Avoid Old Habits and Toxic Relationships

The challenge of staying sober varies in intensity from person to person. For many people, staying sober is impossible without professional medical support. However, there are an equal number of reasons to get sober and stay sober. Some are as personal to addicts as their reasons for using, but others are more universal.

• Staying sober will give you the best chance of healing and building new connections.
• It may seem that relapse is the last thing that could happen to you, but the truth is they are very common for people new to recovery.
• From improved physical and mental health to restored relationships, personal growth, and the freedom to live authentically, the rewards of sobriety are invaluable.
• And if you just need a little motivation to get through today, here are 10 excellent reasons to stay sober.

If you were active in your addiction for a period of time, you may have developed financial problems. Some of the immediate changes you will need to make will be obvious—like not hanging around the people that you used with or obtained drugs from. After all, you can’t hang around your drug dealer or old drinking buddies and expect to remain sober for very long.

Reasons to Stay Sober: What’s Your WHY?

Relationships between addicts and non-addicts tend to be shorter and less fulfilling than when neither partner is an addict. The loved ones of drug abusers can lose trust in the addict due to unpredictable behavior. Prolonged marijuana and alcohol use reduces the chances of graduation from both high school and college. Additionally, women who use drugs enter the workforce later than women who don’t. In general, drug use can lead to workplace theft and distraction from the job due to thinking about using or getting drugs. Marijuana users alone experience accidents at work at a 55% higher rate than non-users, as well as 85% more injuries and 75% more absences.

The darkness around your eyes fade, wrinkles iron out a bit and even acne fades. Alcohol is a poison, plugging numerous toxins into your system. When you’re sober though, your skin naturally becomes healthier.

You avoid alcohol- or drug-related health problems.

The inspiration to live a sober lifestyle can come from loved ones, from people in similar situations or simply from thinking about the consequences of substance use. Drugs are expensive, there’s really no hiding that fact, and as addiction grows, we begin spending more and more of our money on appeasing our habit. Once an addict begins figuring out how to stay sober from drugs, they start spending less and less money on drugs, instead creating a level of financial stability for themselves. Honestly, you would be surprised how much extra money you have when it isn’t all going to heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. Learning sober coping strategies to deal with stress can help you stay calm and avoid triggering explosive emotional reactions or relapse.

Nine of those are listed here if you need some inspiration to get sober or to assist you with a battle against temptation or difficulty. I’ve never crashed a car or received a DUI, never drunk while pregnant, never been fired from a job, never punched someone in a bar, and never set the house on fire. My marriage is long and happy, my daughter excels at school and is socially happy, and I have a successful career in an competitive field. Yet I was also a lush for twenty years, and wine increasingly eroded my productivity as well as my enjoyment of daily life. Most bothersome, wine—drinking it, planning around it, figuring out how to get enough of it, recovering from it—was a squatter on my psychic landscape.