Why Values Are Important to Living Sober and Clean
Personal values come from a person’s deep intentions about how they want to live their lives. They are important to how you set goals in recovery and find success. Values can influence behavior, thoughts, feelings, choices, and how you live out your life in sobriety. If you want to stay clean and away from drugs and alcohol, it helps to understand what values mean, how they develop, and how to keep strengthening them every day in recovery.
Addiction and Values
One of the things many people may not think about when it comes to addiction is how it interacts (and disrupts) the value system. Everyone has values, whether or not they think about them. People who struggle with addiction often go against personal values to achieve the ultimate goal of feeding their addiction. No matter how positive or healthy those values may be, alcohol and drugs cut them off at the pass and typically dominate a person’s life. Some values that may be impacted include:
- Personal integrity to say what you mean and mean what you say
- Take ownership of your life without blaming others for your mistakes under the influence
- Getting into legal trouble for stealing, lying, cheating, or other issues related to addiction (in spite of personally being against them otherwise)
- Physical and emotional self-care which falls to the wayside
- Taking care of family and friendships but not being able to do this when addicted
Know Your Values
Values are something that should not shift too much over time. Stability helps a person build integrity. As people grow and change, they incorporate those experiences into existing values, even if some become less pertinent over time. Getting clear on values is important to keep things going forward. Moving from addiction to recovery is an important step, but it is not everything. Newer values can be incorporated into a person’s recovery because a new identity is being forged. Old values can resurface and be renewed alongside those new values. What matters to people shifts and changes, but the key is to find what is important to you and keep working on making it stronger. Letting those values slide can be an indicator relapse is on the horizon or that you are struggling. If this happens, be sure to check in with accountability partners and find added support for recovery.
The Palmetto Center is based on a Therapeutic Community model. We help people learn how to live free of addiction. Our community support provides structure while trained counselors offer life skills training and therapeutic techniques to help you move past addiction. Our program provides special focus for professionals including chiropractors, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and more who need help with addiction recovery. Call us to find out more: 866-848-3001.
