If you are participating in treatment or you’ve recently completed rehab, it’s time for you to find sober hobbies for recovering addicts. Graduating rehab doesn’t mean you should fall back into old habits or live in isolation. In fact, it means the opposite. You should find fun, sober activities that you can do to fill your life with structure and rewarding hobbies.
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What is the Importance of Sober Hobbies in Recovery?
Hobbies are essential in recovery because they give you a place to apply your energy. You need activities after rehab that help you improve your mental and physical health, force you to learn new things, get you moving, keep you outside, and keep you engaged.
Thankfully, you can find sober hobbies in recovery that fit your personality. If you prefer hands-on activities that help you deal with pent-up frustration or stress, outdoor activities might be the best hobbies for you to cultivate. If, instead, you prefer grounding yourself in volunteerism, you can find areas where you can serve your community and improve your mental health therein.
What Are Examples of Hobbies for Recovering Addicts?
There are many types of fun sober activities you can participate in after recovery.
Crafts
Crafts can refer to many activities, all of which are hands-on. These types of hobbies for addicts are great because of the tactile engagement and mindfulness required. Some common examples include:
- Woodworking
- Painting
- Jewelry making
- Building
- Sculpting
Each of these makes for great sober hobbies in recovery because you can complete them individually or participate in groups. If, for example, you want to integrate painting or some other form of artwork into your recovery, you can find local painting classes, live online painting classes, free community-based painting classes or workshops, or just paint at home. You can apply what you have learned daily as you acquire more skills.
Things like different painting classes can give you exposure to multiple techniques, offer a hands-on hobby, and provide a creative outlet. While you might participate in an oil painting class on the weekends, you can easily use coloring books and watercolors to help you with stress management and relapse prevention.
Outdoor Activities
Outdoor activities are perfect hobbies for recovering addicts because they force you to focus on your physical and mental health at the same time. Physically challenging outdoor activities can push away thoughts of depression, anxiety, and discomfort. They also help you focus on the present and apply mindfulness techniques you may have acquired during recovery. Some examples include:
- Hiking
- Yoga
- Rock climbing
With each of these sober hobbies in recovery, you can find different levels of challenge. Hiking requires endurance. This means long-term physical benefits you build by repeating similar tasks and building strength over time. The more you hike as part of your fun sober activities after rehab, the more you can build that endurance. You have control over how difficult or challenging a particular route is, how long you hike, and whether you hike in groups or by yourself.
The same is true of things like rock climbing. These outdoor activities focus on improving mental health, overcoming and accepting temporary challenges, and building endurance. If you are feeling things like stress, anger, or frustration, you can channel it directly into your physical activity, which can provide multiple mental health benefits during recovery.
Yoga can help you maintain mindfulness and accept temporary discomfort. It also allows you to focus on your breathing and develop meditative coping skills. Like hiking, rock climbing, or any other outdoor activity, you can choose the level of difficulty and challenges associated with the yoga classes you take.
You can find individual classes or group classes in your community that are easy, fun, and relaxing with an emphasis on stretching and breathing, or you can find incredibly challenging classes that help you build endurance and physical strength.
How to Find Hobbies and Aftercare in Recovery?
One of your best resources for finding hobbies and aftercare in recovery is a treatment facility like Liberty House Recovery Center. Our Michigan drug treatment center works closely with community organizations, relapse prevention programs, and other groups that might prove beneficial in recovery.
If you participated in yoga classes during your inpatient or outpatient treatment and you developed a fondness for them, we can help direct you to resources for classes where you live. If, instead, you really liked the outdoor activities you did during recovery, we can help you find local hiking clubs, sober rock climbing organizations, or similar hobbies. We can also sit down with you to review the best sober hobbies in recovery for your situation.
Contact Liberty House Recovery Center to learn more about sober hobbies in recovery.