Sobriety: How to Start and Maintain a Sober Lifestyle

Working with professionals in outpatient care and continued therapy can help challenge feelings of shame and add new strategies for healthy sobriety. Being sober empowers you to take control of your relationships, physical and mental health, and ambitions. Setting goals is an important skill in overcoming drug or alcohol dependence. If you’re having difficulty maintaining sobriety in the community, you may benefit from checking into an inpatient rehab program. These programs require you to live on-site at a facility, so you’ll be removed from the triggers in your daily environment.

• • Supports Independence and Self-DirectionEach milestone reinforces that you are capable of making choices to enhance your well-being.
• Sobriety recovery involves therapy, support, education, and learning new habits.
• In August 2024, she dragged an Instagram user who randomly told her to “STOP DRINKING” on a post celebrating her son Ace’s 11th birthday.
• “As soon as we announced this program, we heard from people who want to participate,” said Councilor Renée Grout.

Ricky Martin Celebrates Bad Bunny in Open Letter: ‘You Won by Staying True to Puerto Rico’

• He spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012 and shared his progress a decade after the stay.
• Each year offers another opportunity to stop, reflect, and truly see how far you’ve come.
• “It gave me so much structure in the time that I really needed structure, because I didn’t want to just be sitting around and stirring in my brain,” she told Rolling Stone.
• Not only can avoiding alcohol or drug use improve cardiovascular, liver, and gastrointestinal health and dietary habits, but it can also help a person overcome mental health challenges.
• “Feeling thankful for the freedom that comes with breaking addictions and dependency on substance,” he added.

Plain, colored “chips” are still given out today by many groups around the country to signify a “desire” to stop drinking. Other colored chips represent different lengths of sobriety. Your sobriety date is the date on which you had your last drink or used drugs or placed a bet, or acted out in a compulsive-obsessive manner OR the date you sobered up or cleaned up from your last debauch. Last year, Flav shared on the “Off the Record with DJ Akademiks” podcast that before getting clean in 2020, he was spending “$2,400 to $2,600 a day … Also at the intervention were Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, Nick Kroll and Lyonne’s ex Fred Armisen, among others. The Chrissy’s Court star revealed in December 2020 that she was again sober.

The Journey To Sobriety

Thousands of other people are going through the exact same thing you are. Connect with others that have the same addiction, and at the same point in their sobriety. Reflecting on the Steps You’ve TakenTake moments to acknowledge the changes you’ve made, even the small ones. Small medallions commemorating various lengths of sobriety; i.e., 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9 months; years and multiples of years. The first chip which is usually given out to a newcomer is called a ‘desire’ chip. A desire chip signifies the recipient’s desire to stay sober for the next 24 hours.

Word of the Day

• Engaging in a supportive community provides a “safety net” that lowers the body’s physiological fight or flight response.
• “The miracle of sobriety is that it just takes one other person to relate to how you’re feeling and THAT can change everything.”
• The goal of sobriety is maintaining abstinence from alcohol or drug use while creating a fulfilling and transformed life.
• The most important thing is to have the right resources to pull yourself back up and build up your resilience to triggers, cravings, and stressful situations.

The Valley star shared his Maverick House vs Eco Sober House decades-long battle with drugs in March 2025 after going to rehab. “Kylie was a daughter who loved hard, a sister who never let go, and a friend who showed up without being asked. She was the kind of person who made you feel like family — no matter who you were,” the fundraiser set up by Page’s friends and family read. Porn star Kylie Page died of an accidental overdose from a cocktail of cocaine and fentanyl just days after she celebrated a sobriety milestone, authorities in California have ruled.

• What happens when a musician trades liquid courage for clarity?
• Taking time to acknowledge milestones, whether they feel big or small, reminds you that the effort you’ve put into staying sober matters.
• Whether focusing on self-restraint or the broader practice of moderation, these terms illuminate the path towards a healthier, balanced lifestyle.

Sobriety is often understood as the state of not being intoxicated, but its definition can vary significantly from person to person. If you wish to contact a specific rehab facility then find a specific rehab facility using our treatment locator page or visit SAMHSA.gov.

Check Into an Inpatient Rehab Facility

Because each group has its own unique subculture, the experience can vary significantly from one location to another. The key is to remain open to different formats until a supportive environment is identified. While 12 step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous are the most well known, many other options exist today. SMART Recovery is a popular secular alternative that utilizes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles. Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS) and LifeRing Secular Recovery offer paths that do not involve spiritual or religious components. The Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment indicates that participants in SMART Recovery and LifeRing show similar success rates to those in 12 step programs (Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 2018).