A strong recovery process requires daily routines and rituals, which is one of the reasons why tracking your sobriety, one day at a time is at the heart of a clear recovery plan.
Why should I track my sobriety?
It might seem like a small and overly simple daily exercise, but it holds more significance and meaning as time goes on. Counting your sobriety days, each and every day has benefits at all stages of a recovery journey. Keeping tabs on your sobriety helps you to measure your performance as you work towards your recovery goals. These goals then become milestone days to celebrate, which is one of recovery’s simple and unexpected joys.
“Every small intentional daily routine and ritual in recovery matters.”
As you achieve goals and milestones it helps to build new skills and confidence in yourself to succeed. With time, consistent sobriety propels you further away from a destructive addictive cycle which is filled with perpetual failed attempts and recommitments to stop.
How long should I track my sobriety?
In early recovery and right through the first twelve months, it is a basic recovery skill to keep tracking your sobriety days. Common goals and milestones to reach are 30 days, 60 days, 90 days and beyond. If you are working with an addiction therapist, together you will be discussing your ongoing goals and progress. It is not unusual for people to track their sobriety right up to the 1000 day mark! What once started out as a sobriety goal and target becomes a milestone achievement to celebrate.
Addiction recovery is generally monitored attentively for the first three years, and many will choose to continue counting successful long-term abstinence. It is a strong personal and sometimes spiritual motivation to stay focused on recovery especially on the challenging days.
How do I track my sobriety?
Firstly, make a decision to actively acknowledge every day of your sobriety. A simple mindful recovery exercise is to write your sobriety day number i.e. 89 on the palm of your hand or on a post-it and stick it on a mirror or maybe in your recovery journal. Somewhere that you can see it throughout the day. This will act as a visual reminder of your progress and helps keep you focused and grounded. You can also use recovery apps and sobriety calculators and counters which help you to monitor your sobriety from the date you started in-case you loose track.
If you want to take this daily mindfulness ritual to another level, then you can practice intentionally noticing your sobriety day number in your surroundings. For example, on a house door, a bus stop or even a car registration number. Every small intentional daily routine and ritual in recovery matters.
