The individuals you choose to engage with can have a significant impact on who you are as a person. People often adopt qualities from the individuals they surround themselves with and tend to develop similar characteristics as them. Being aware of this is extremely important through the process of addiction recovery to ensure you are surrounding yourself with positive influences.
Observe Your Current Social Network
One of the first ways to determine if your social circle is helping or hindering your recovery is to observe your current social network and notice what influences are surrounding you. Try writing down a list of your friends, acquaintances, and individuals you spend the most time with. Next to each name, write down qualities that you associate with that person. Below that, write down how you typically feel after being around them. Be completely honest when writing down these observations.
When reviewing your responses, you should be able to pick out individuals that you correlate with positive feelings and those you associate with negative ones. If you find that some individuals leave you feeling self-conscious, depressed, angry, jealous, or any other negative emotion after your interactions, it may be a good idea to consider disengaging from that relationship.
Even if you do not see a direct correlation between your relationships and your recovery, the feelings you experience from outside interactions do play a part in your motivation to succeed in recovery and maintain long-term sobriety. This exercise is extremely helpful in opening your mind to the true effects your peers have on you and isolating individuals who may negatively contribute to your recovery.
Watch for These Warning Signs
Certain characteristics are warning signs that your peers may not be having a positive impact on you during your recovery. If you find that these characteristics or similar characteristics are present in the list you made in the previous exercise, question the benefits of continuing with that social engagement. The following characteristics of unhealthy relationships could be hindering your success in recovery:
- Hostility
- Disrespect
- Control
- Dishonesty
- Dependence
- Intimidation
- Violence
- Manipulation
If you regularly engage with an individual who commonly shows any of these characteristics, they are likely not a healthy contribution to your recovery. Informing them that you are avoiding certain activities or communicating with them about their effect on your recovery can help the individual understand their actions and how you are affected. If the individual is unwilling to change their behaviors that are negatively impacting you, it is best to detach from that friendship or relationship altogether. Respectfully communicating this can be difficult, but it may be essential for your well-being.
Know Your Support System
While there are many characteristics to avoid in your social network, there are also many characteristics to search for in a support system. You may find that you have friends or peers who have amazing qualities that are positively impacting your recovery. The goal is to have everyone you consistently engage with spreading positivity into your life.
The following characteristics are typically beneficial and can ensure your support system is pushing you in the right direction:
- Trust
- Honesty
- Mutual Respect
- Communication
- Compromise
- Individuality
- Problem-solving
- Understanding
- Encouragement
Know Your Needs
An important way to determine if your current social circle is helping or hindering your recovery is to understand your current needs during the recovery process. You may need a friend who is willing to listen to you, or you may need a friend who encourages you to participate in healthy activities. Knowing your current social standing and your goals for recovery determine if the people you surround yourself with are helping you reach those goals.
You may feel that you need help from a peer to encourage motivation or help keep you sober in a social situation. Communicating your needs with your peers can help you establish beneficial relationships. Let your friends know your emotional, psychological, social, and sobriety needs and how they can help you succeed.
Provide Mutual Support
As you may need a great deal of support during the recovery process, your friends may need support with their own situations. Providing mutual support and being a healthy individual in their life as well is extremely important in maintaining healthy relationships. If you are consistently looking for support but never willing to reciprocate it, your friends may feel used and neglected. Support should go both ways in any kind of relationship and can help you feel good by being a supportive person to them as well. Helping your friends and being a source of positivity to them can also increase the support they are willing to provide you with.
The social networks you involve yourself in during recovery can significantly impact your success in reaching your goals. Understanding your current social engagements and observing if you are involved in healthy relationships can help you ensure you have a beneficial support system. Try writing down the current individuals you spend time with in your social networks, listing traits and feelings that come to mind with each person. Observing these traits, you can decide who benefits your recovery and who may be hindering it. Knowing what form of support you need is vital so that you can communicate it with the people in your life. Provide mutual support to those who support you to create a healthy relationship for everyone involved. To learn more about how to determine if your social network is beneficial to your recovery success, reach out to Dream Recovery at (949) 732-1960.
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