Community integration in addiction is essential. When you go through treatment and recovery, that journey is yours. However, to those who support you, it becomes their journey also.
The world that we live in is not always welcoming of all communities in certain spaces. This is why it is of high importance that society is well-educated on addiction and mental health disorders. When you have a better understanding of something, you know how to navigate it. Taking on a life of sobriety means that your world will now be different, and you will have to find a way to integrate your new world with the current one that has always existed.
Life as You Know It Is Only Changing for You; The World You Will Return to Is the Same
When you get sober, life as you know it will completely change. The people around you will start to look different as you place proper boundaries to protect your sobriety. Although life as you once knew it is changing, the culmination of these changes is yours to experience alone. The world around you will essentially remain the same.
It is almost like you live in a bubble within a bubble. You can think of this as something like a Venn diagram where one side is your sober life, and the other side is the rest of the world, and in the middle is where they meet. That space where they meet is why the role of community integration in addiction recovery is key. You will need to learn to navigate and adapt to your new life in spaces that may not feel supportive of your new world.
Although the pre-existing world will not be making these changes with your world, there has to be a safe space for your subculture of persons within it. This is why panels and conferences on addiction awareness exist. It is inevitable that you will have to work, socialize, and live in a non-sober world. Finding ways to navigate both your sobriety and the rest of the world is crucial for your recovery.
Community Integration: Your Reacclamation to Society
After treatment, you may take a moment before trying to dive back into social life. Staying in the house is not necessarily the way to avoid things that are no longer a part of your world. You can even be triggered by things in your house that you simply cannot change. There are TV commercials or even just a portrayal of socializing on TV that can trigger you. If you listen to the radio and happen to hear mentions of substances or alcohol, it can also be triggering. It is safe to say that complete and total avoidance of the world outside of sobriety and triggers is impossible.
In light of this reality, one must understand the need to be reacclimated to society. Even if triggers cannot be avoided, there is a way to address and face them. However, you will never know what they are if you don’t go into those other spaces.
The Merging of Your Two Worlds
It is not easy trying to merge your new sober world with the rest of the world that you must also live in. For example, holidays still exist in both worlds and although you may not want to celebrate in the ways that you used to, you cannot change that others will.
It may be hard, even just having a conversation with someone who is not sober, because you may feel like no one outside of the sober community can relate to you. So, taking small steps to socialize with the outside world is necessary. You will find that your being in those spaces can help educate the uneducated. People who think of addiction and recovery as something so far-fetched from their world can see the gap being merged through your presence.
Your presence can offer a gift to individuals ignorant of the reality that you’re still a human being just like they are. Those who just cannot understand why or how addiction can attach itself to the lives of so many can gain a better perspective from you.
You can show people that you are not broken, and you can still have fun. It’s just not in the same ways that they do. They can understand this by having exposure to sober individuals in spaces that are not just for this community.
How Lantana Recovery Uses Community Integration to Prepare You
At Lantana Recovery, we understand the need for community integration. We aid our clients in recovery by incorporating community integration into our programs. In doing so, we even offer a family program to promote their understanding of the disease.
Lantana Recovery allows clients to socialize with the outside world and the local recovery community. You need to experience triggers because doing so in a safe space can prepare you for experiencing them on your own outside of treatment.
The ability to volunteer and experience the outside world is crucial to life outside the treatment space. If you are considering treatment and are unsure what life will look like once you re-enter the outside world, let us help you gain the tools to navigate it. Life will look different, but knowing how to integrate yourself back into society can help your healing process.
Without community integration, an individual in recovery will always feel one trigger or craving away from relapse. Getting sober means making a lifelong change. Your world changes; however, the world does not change with you. You cannot expect substances and alcohol to be wiped away from every environment that you may enter. This is just not how life works. With the help of community integration and obtaining tools on how to face triggers and be sober in a part-life society, you can coexist. Learning to do so is the only way to have a successful recovery. For more information on community integration in recovery, call Lantana Recovery today at (866) 997-2870.
