Coping Skills for Women in Recovery (Part I)

Most people don’t realize when an addiction starts to take over. They ignore the signs and pretend it isn’t changing their life. Don’t let this happen during your addiction recovery. Stay on top of it by developing and using good coping skills. As a woman, you have unique recovery needs. Use the following tips to help you throughout your recovery.

Avoid Situations With High Risk

It’s a lot easier to prevent a bad situation than to get yourself out of one. Recognize high risk when you see it, and you can keep your sobriety intact more easily. Hanging around the wrong friends, being around a lot of stress, or trying to squeeze too much into your schedule can overload your mind and emotions.

You can only take so much before you start looking for ways to escape. Avoiding high-risk situations is a lot easier when you spend time around people with a healthy lifestyle. You have fewer opportunities to get yourself into trouble and your mindset will be focused on positive living.

Find Healthy Ways To Manage Your Emotions

Everyone needs to cope with difficult emotions when they come up. Most women are a more emotionally expressive than men. Women also tend to be more sensitive to emotional fluctuations and lack of harmony in a group. Before your recovery days, you would have used drugs and alcohol to cope with intense feelings before your recovery.

You’ll have a big gap in your life when you stop using drugs and alcohol. Fill that empty spot with better positive habits. Go for a walk, talk to a good friend, do some practical physical activities to quiet your mind, or listen to music. If you can distract yourself in a healthy way, your emotions will calm down sooner and you’ll lower your relapse risk.

Give Yourself Regular Reality Checks

You did a lot to avoid reality when you were actively using drugs. To shake this habit, you need to keep in touch with the truth every day. Spend time around people who will be real with you. Take notice of your own improvements, write those down, and make sure you read those daily. Learn to accept genuine compliments from others who see your progress.

Own up to the negative realities as well. Instead of making an excuse, acknowledge where you went wrong and do your best to make it right. Learn how to accept difficult things you can’t change. You can learn a lot more about yourself when you stay honest every day.

More Coping Skills For Women In Recovery

We have more coping skills for you to learn about. Come back for the next post on this topic to read about more essential ways to prevent relapse.