When you choose to become sober, you might worry that your life is going to become boring. You may ask yourself, is my life really going to get better? Am I ever going to be able to have fun again without drinking or using substances? Is getting sober even worth it? Well, we are here to tell you that the benefits of sobriety far outweigh the downfalls. In fact, living a sober life is the best decision that you can ever make.
Although the media may make getting drunk and using drugs seem appealing and fun, the effects of abusing substances are not. Hangovers are not fun, throwing up is not fun, embarrassing yourself is not fun, getting withdrawal symptoms due to drug dependency is far from fun, and suffering from addiction to drugs is insufferable.
Trust us, if you struggle with substance abuse or addiction, living a sober life will improve your life immensely. To help you maintain your sobriety and see the benefits of doing so, we are providing you with a detailed list of reasons why living a sober life is beneficial. Get ready to live the good life.
#1 Benefit of Living a Sober Life: Your Overall Health Will Improve
When living a sober life after addiction, your overall health improves immensely. This is because you’re no longer attacking your body by putting dangerous amounts of toxic substances in it.
Due to the toxicity level of alcohol and drugs, when you chronically abuse them, your immune system lowers. As a result, you become sick more easily. Therefore, when you stop placing such toxic substances in your body or even relieve your body of the toxic substances that it already has within it through detox, your immune system receives a boost. When your immune system improves, your overall health improves.
Chronically abusing substances has many more negative effects on human health. For example, chronic abuse of substances can cause you to either lose or gain an unhealthily large amount of weight. Therefore, when you become sober, your weight will likely stabilize itself.
Continuous substance abuse can even do things like cause your blood pressure to spike or decrease to an unhealthy range. When your blood pressure becomes too high or too low, it can cause your body to go into shock. Therefore, it is sometimes imperative for your blood pressure and overall health to become sober.
As you consume more and more alcohol or drugs, you’ll likely stop eating a balanced diet altogether. This will cause you to become malnourished. Before you know it, you’ll choose not to physically take care of yourself at all. The only way to get you out of this rut of not taking care of yourself is sobriety.
Over time, chronic substance abuse can even cause physical body issues such as heart palpitations and pain, diarrhea, seizures, diabetes, heart disease, and more. Why put yourself through all of that when you can live a happy, sober, and healthy life instead.
2. You’ll Have More Money
Whenever you suffer from addiction, you’re willing to spend every last penny that you have on alcohol or drugs. As a result, you end up blowing threw your money. Blowing through your own money may even cause you to steal money from those close to you to pay for substances. That’s why one benefit of living a sober life is that you will not spend your money on substances anymore. Therefore, you’ll have more ready funds than you did while suffering from addiction.
3. You’ll Get the Opportunity to Repair Broken Relationships
When you suffer from addiction, you become selfish, toxic, and difficult to maintain a relationship with. As a result, you’ve likely broken and lost relationships that you’ve had in the past with family members and friends while suffering from addiction.
One of the many benefits of sobriety is that you’ll get a fresh start on repairing these broken relationships. All you need to do is take responsibility for your past wrongs and prove to your family and friends that you’re now sober and trustworthy again. This may help you make amends with the people you love. As a result, you may be able to rebuild relationships that broke due to addiction.
4. You’ll Gain More Energy
Taking substances can decrease your energy levels. This is especially the case if you’re taking depressants or downers. Abusing substances can also lower your energy due to the fact that substances often rewire the parts of the brain that control your mood. Since your mood affects your energy, the rewiring of your brain can cause you to lose energy as well.
Another reason why your energy is often lower while abusing substances than it is while sober is because addiction causes you to not get good sleep. Because you aren’t receiving good sleep when suffering from addiction, your body is not getting the proper time and rest that it needs to refuel itself. As a result, you lack energy. This also means that living a sober life will help you gain your energy back.
5. Your Appearance Will Improve
When you’re suffering from addiction, your only concern is to get more substances. As a result, you neglect your physical appearance and personal hygiene. Therefore, living a sober life will improve your appearance.
6. You’ll Have Better Memory
When you abuse large amounts of alcohol or drugs, your memory becomes foggy. This is because you’re essentially sedating yourself. So, you should become sober if you want your memory to improve.
7. You’ll Gain More Time
Living a sober life will give you way more time than living with addiction. This is because when you suffer from addiction, you become consumed with getting more alcohol or drugs and that alone. But, when you become sober, you get to have all the time that you would have normally used to obtain substances while suffering from addiction. With all this newfound time, you can change your life for the better.
8. You’ll Garner Respect
Unfortunately, there is a stigma surrounding those with addiction. In fact, many people view those suffering from addiction as being lazy and crazy. The only true way to avoid this stigma as an addict is to redeem yourself by becoming sober. Once you start living a sober life, people will respect you and your ability to overcome life’s obstacles.
9. You’ll Sleep Better
When you abuse substances to the point that it rewires your brain and consumes you, you struggle sleeping through the night. Sleep is a vital bodily function. Without it, you cannot function at your best. That’s why it’s so important to get the proper amount of sleep each night. Because of how vital sleep is, one of the key benefits of sobriety is that you get to sleep again.
10. Your Mental Health Will Improve
When you abuse substances for extended periods of time, it exaggerates any mental health issues that you have. This is especially true since you’re likely not taking care of your physical or mental health as it is while suffering from addiction. However, living a sober life will help improve your physical, and in particular, your mental health.
11. It Will Increase Your Ability to Build Long-Lasting Relationships
When you suffer from addiction, you become so obsessed with obtaining more alcohol or drugs that you stop investing in your relationships with other people. In fact, the selfish behaviors that often come with addiction often break the relationships that you have with others. One of the major benefits of sobriety is that you will regain the patience, time, and ability you need to build long-lasting relationships. Once sober, you can use this ability to make up for lost time and make new friendships.
12. Self-Discovery
Living a sober life after going through addiction gives you a new perspective on life. This is because it allows you to see the world through new eyes after being clouded by alcohol and drugs for so long.
Recovering from addiction also teaches you about yourself. This is because you got to learn through the ups and downs of addiction and addiction treatment what your triggers are, what your coping mechanisms are, and why you do the things that you do. With this newfound information about yourself, you can craft a new life for yourself that best fits your personal needs.
13. A New Lease on Life
Addiction is a terrible illness that often causes people to die due to overdose or suicide. Therefore, becoming sober after suffering from addiction is no small feat. It’s basically as if you got a new lease on life. Many people don’t get the opportunity to have such a vital second chance. To ensure that your second chance at life doesn’t go to waste, focus on self-improvement.
Enjoy the Benefits of Sobriety with Help From Silver Linings!
At Silver Linings Recovery Center, we provide a variety of inpatient and outpatient addiction treatment programs and therapy services to help you get back to living a sober life. Our addiction treatment programs cater to people addicted to alcohol, prescription drugs, and multiple illegal drugs. We even provide detox and dual diagnosis treatment for those that need it. To learn more about Silver Linings Recovery Center and the different services that we offer, contact us today.
