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Taking responsibility for your actions and making amends for your actions are two of the steps in most recovery programs. Taking accountability in recovery is critical to your ability to stay sober and to maintain your own emotional health during your journey. Accountability can also allow you to build better relationships with others and can even improve your ability to hold down a meaningful job.
Why Accountability in Recovery Matters
Feelings of guilt and shame are common among those working to achieve and maintain sobriety. While part of this emotional upheaval can be attributed to chemical changes caused by drug and alcohol use, people in recovery can also become depressed or ashamed of things they did while under the influence of drugs or alcohol or in the process of obtaining these items.
Taking responsibility for these past actions and maintaining accountability during the recovery process can relieve some of the guilt that can linger after long periods of addiction to drugs or alcohol. By accepting your mistakes of the past and working to take responsibility and to make amends for them, you can often build your confidence and self-esteem to allow you to recover more fully from the damage caused by your previous addiction problems.
Accepting Responsibility and Moving Forward
During the recovery process, it can be tempting to put the blame on others for your actions. Some people point to the chemical effects of drugs and alcohol as the culprits for their own bad behaviors or as an excuse not to engage with their ongoing recovery. By taking responsibility for your own decisions and actions, however, you can often achieve real progress toward your goals of long-term sobriety.
Failing to take responsibility and to be accountable for your actions, however, can make it much more difficult to move forward and to stay sober. Blaming others or the drugs and alcohol can make it more likely for you to relapse into previous behaviors, to take up new and damaging habits or to create serious issues in your relationships with friends, family members and employers.
How Sober Living America Can Help
At Sober Living America, we offer an integrated and holistic approach to recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Our program encompasses four basic elements to help you achieve long-term sobriety:
- Housing: By living in an apartment-style housing arrangement with others in similar positions, you can reinforce your own focus on sobriety while supporting others in the program.
- Career development: Finding employment while recovering from addiction can be difficult. We help you to connect with employers who will assist you in building a work history of which you can be proud.
- Transportation: Whether you need transport to work, church, AA meetings or shopping, Sober Living America can provide you with the solutions you need.
- Recovery services: Along with the practical aspects of managing your sobriety, we help you to find the joy in living through recovery activities that will help you find a new way of life that will support your sobriety.
To learn more about the Sober Living America program, visit us online or call us at 1-877-430-0086. We can help even if you have few or no financial resources. At Sober Living America, we are here to support you or someone you love in recovering from addiction.
