Recovery happens at its own pace. No matter the person, no matter the past addiction, recovery doesn’t follow a single blueprint or timetable. It’s a journey characterized by its ups and lows, with just as many good days to celebrate as there are bad days to move past. Recovery is defined by both progress and regression, and ideally the daily encouragement that ultimately plays a large part in reaching and maintaining addiction-free living.
If you’re looking to break free from an addiction you’re experiencing, it’s in your best interest to pursue professional help. Strength during the addiction-breaking process isn’t found in pretending you’re strong enough to live life on your own; rather, strength and freedom are found in individuals who admit that they need help, and work toward once again reaching freedom from addiction or abuse of any kind.
Once you’ve sought out professional help, there’s still a lot you can do on your own time to further your progress and guard against and regression back toward your addiction. With so many online resources, the internet is one of the first places you should turn for that added support. Again, these resources are by no means a suitable replacement for the professional help you need; however, whether you’re looking for daily affirmation, information on addiction recovery or remote advocates cheering you on during your recovery journey, we’ve outlined several resources that can really help you kick your recovery into gear.
SAMHSA National Helpline
If you’re in the early stages of addiction, or you’re looking for the strength to break free from your addiction and live your best life, there isn’t a better resource on the planet than the SAMHSA National Helpline. Professional counselors are literally waiting for your call, waiting for the opportunity to talk to you about the steps to recovery, waiting to tell you about how much better your life will become once you can return to your pre-addiction life.
The helpline itself is entirely confidential, and helps to connect you with further resources near you that can help you turn the tide in your fight against any addiction.
Sober Grid
Touted as the “World’s Largest Recovery App,” Sober Grid offers the world’s largest recovering community as daily advocates to take with you on your personal journey. A project funded by the National Science Foundation, the free mobile application is available across both iPhone and Android platforms, and offers concrete in-app resources to track daily highs, lows and overall progress. You’ll also find a way to accrue badges and other celebratory awards, as you achieve real-life milestones on your journey from addiction toward freedom.
If you need live coaching and direct peer-to-peer communication, you’ll find it inside the easy-to-use app as well. In a social media meets addiction recovery type of platform, Sober Grid offers recovering addicts exactly what they need: the chance to connect with others experiencing similar challenges, and advocates who can celebrate the highs and journey through the lows in real time.
LifeRing Secular Recovery
During a time when more and more people recovering from substance abuse are forced to recover virtually because of the lingering threat of COVID-19, it’s oftentimes difficult for those same people in recovery to feel a sense of community. And yet, it’s that community and sense of belonging that can really prove the difference between a relapse and someone who reaches and sustains freedom from their addiction. For anyone yearning for that sense of community to aid their addiction recovery efforts, LifeRing Secular Recovery is here to help.
LifeRing keeps their description simple: they’re a community for individuals requiring support during their addiction recovery journeys. They prioritize assistance from damaging addiction triggers or substances along the way, instead prioritizing strength of community and constant contact through their support network. LifeRing achieves these goals by drawing firm lines between what they call the “Sober Self” and the “Addict Self,” helping members identify the differences between those two personas in their own lives. Their support model, branded to emphasize “advice, understanding, and encouragement,” offers local meetings, online support, emails groups and more. If you need community-based addiction recovery resources, you need LifeRing.
SMART Recovery
SMART Recovery wants you to know that your life starts when you get it back. They see stealing your life back from addiction as an immediate priority, and help you reach your own respective addiction recovery goals through a global network of support groups, science-based seminars and shared resources. SMART Recovery also offers help not only for the struggling individual, but also for any family members or friends who may have been adversely affected by the addiction or recovery process Whether you need help exercising self-management, or you need to take advantage of constant accountability, SMART Recovery offers a multi-step process that pairs specific recovery tools with those recovering who need them most.
rTribe
Anyone looking specifically for a resource that prioritizes online counseling and coaching needs to give rTribe a look. A mobile application available on your smartphone, you’ll find all of the addiction recovery resources you need right at your fingertips: chat and video counseling, anonymous correspondence, licensed help and the ability to connect with other individuals traveling similar addiction recovery paths to your own. Each week, you can identify progress goals for friends to monitor, and you can instantly alert friends any time that you’re feeling particularly vulnerable to a relapse. rTribe connects you with licensed individuals fully qualified to help you, wherever you find yourself on the road to recovery.
31 Prompts to Fill Your Addiction Recovery Journal
One of our treatment partners gets credit for the final addiction recovery resource, 31 Prompts to Fill Your Addiction Recovery Journal. It’s a free resource they created specifically for anyone keeping a loose or strict record of their own addiction struggles and progress. Addiction journaling is one of the best ways to keep track of your recovery progress, while you maintain honesty with yourself as you work to become a better version of yourself.
Whether you’re looking for more of a creative prompt, or you want to vent about a difficult day or celebrate progress or a particular milestone, addiction journal prompts have a way of working your emotions to the surface.
Resources designed to be retired
The best addiction recovery resources are designed to be used and then discarded. In fact, that’s likely where you’ll take the most joy from – the conclusion of the addition recovery process, when you can honestly admit to yourself that you no longer need to write daily recovery journal entries, connect with the same community or source online support during the height of your struggles. All of the above addiction recovery resources were engineered to help you bridge the distance between who you are, and the addiction-free person that you want to become. No matter how you get there – mobile application, journal, online community, accountability coach, etc. – the journey from addiction to recovery to freedom is one that’s always worth the effort.