Recovery Skills

The First Rule of Recovery




Avoid High-Risk Situations


  • Hungry
  • Angry
  • Lonely
  • Tired

How do you feel at the end of the day? You're probably hungry because you haven't eaten well. You're probably angry because you've had a tough day at work or a tough commute home. You may feel lonely because you're isolated. You don't have to be physically alone to feel lonely. And you're tired. That's why your strongest cravings usually occur at the end of the day. Here's another way of looking at high-risk situations:

  • Places. (Places where you use or where you get your drugs or alcohol.)
  • Things. (Things that remind you of your using.)

How can you avoid high-risk situations? Of course, you can't always avoid these situations. But if you're aware of them, they won't catch you off guard, and you can prevent little craving from turning into major urges.

Take better care of yourself. Eat a healthier lunch so you're not as hungry at the end of the day. Join a 12 step group so that you don't feel isolated. Learn how to relax so that you can let go of your anger and resentments. Develop better sleep habits so that you're less tired.

Avoid your drinking friends, your favorite bar, and having alcohol in the house. Avoid people who you used cocaine with, driving by your dealer's neighborhood, and cocaine paraphernalia.

Recovery isn't about one big change. It's about lots of little changes. Avoiding those high-risk situations helps you create a new life where it's easier to not use.

Make a list of your high-risk situations. Addiction is sneaky. Sometimes you won't see your high-risk situations until you're right in the middle of one. That's why it's important that you learn to look for them. Make a list of your high-risk situations and keep it with you. Go over the list with someone in recovery so that you can spot any situations that you might have missed. Make the list and keep it with you. Some day that list may save your life. (Reference:

Learn to Relax



If you manage to stop using for a while, but don't learn how to relax, your tension will build until you'll have to relapse just to escape again. Tension and the inability to relax are the most common causes of relapse.

I know relaxation will help. I have treated thousands of patients. Many of them have told me that relaxation has changed their life. There is only one reason why people don't relax – because they think they're too busy to relax. It goes something like this, "I know it makes sense, but I've got so many other things I have to do."



Numerous studies have proven that relaxation reduces the use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.(1, 2)

Coping Skills

Two important coping skills for recovery are the ability to relax and manage stress, and the ability to change negative thinking.

Stress management is important, because when you're tense you tend to do what's familiar and wrong instead of what's new and right. When you're tense, you're not open to change.

Cognitive therapy is important because negative thinking is a major cause of anxiety and depression which often underlie addiction. If you can change your thinking, you will improve your life.

These skills are so important that I have written an entire website devoted to each topic. For more information, follow these links:


Be Honest


The other problem with lying is that you can't like yourself when you lie. You can't look yourself in the mirror. Lying traps you in your addiction. The more you lie, the less you like yourself, which makes you want to escape, which leads to more using and more lying.


Recovery requires complete honesty. You must be one-hundred percent completely honest with the people who are your supports: your family, your doctor, your therapist, the people in your 12 step group, and your sponsor. If you can't be completely honest with them, you won't do well in recovery.


One mistake people make in the early stages of recovery is they think that honesty means being honest about other people. They think they should share what's "wrong" with other people. But recovery isn't about fixing other people. It's about fixing yourself. Stick with your own recovery. Focusing on what you don't like about others is easy because it deflects attention from yourself.

Honesty won't come naturally in the beginning. You've spent so much time learning how to lie that telling the truth, no matter how good it is for you, won't feel natural. You'll have to practice telling the truth a few hundred times before it comes a little easier. In the beginning, you'll have to stop yourself as you're telling a story, and say, "now that I think about it, it was more like this..."

Show common sense. Not everybody is your best friend. And not everybody will be glad to know that you have an addiction or that you're doing something about it. There may be some people who you don't want to tell about your recovery. But don't be reluctant to tell the people close to you about your recovery. You should never feel ashamed that you're doing something about your addiction. (Reference:

The Chance to Change Your Life



After 5 years of abstinence relapse is rare. A study followed 268 Harvard University undergraduates, and 456 non-delinquent inner-city adolescents. The men were followed every two years by questionnaire, and every 5 years by physical examination. At some point during their lives, 55 (21%) of the college men and 150 (33%) of the inner-city men met the criteria for alcohol addiction.The study concluded that after 5 years of abstinence relapse is rare.(3)



Last Modified: February 25, 2017

Learn Recovery Skills to overcome addiction. Learn coping skills for recovery. Find help for addiction and recovery. Understand addiction relapse triggers and high-risk situations. Learn what is the first rule of recovery. For a more information, refer to the book, I Want to Change My Life by Dr. Steven M. Melemis.