One of the biggest challenges in early recovery is navigating friendships. Many people come into sobriety not having any friends who don’t also drink and/or use. This leads to a decision to either cut ties and then have to navigate creating new friendships (and likely feeling isolated and lonely in the meantime), or continue current friendships and risk the friends continued use causing problems in their recovery. It’s hard to have to distance ourselves from all our friendships. Humans are social creatures and are wired for connection.

That said, relapse is a real risk when we are around others who are drinking and using. There may be a period of time where for the sake of our sobriety our only connections are treatment providers and people in sober support meetings. That is a large part of what makes getting into treatment and going to sober support meetings helpful-it allows us to have some (albeit small) sense of connection if we have had to end relationships due to substance use. Ending those relationships is not going to be easy, but it sure will help with being able to stay sober. Connecting to forms of sober support is a way to start to build relationships with people who do not use substances.

Questions about sober friendships or anything else related to drug and alcohol recovery? Please feel free to get in touch.