Other essential "maintenance streaks" is what keeps the abstinence going

This isn't a success story, which I think has its limits even when told very well but more a general hopefully common sense note about what has helped. Though my current streak is not my longest ever it has been the easiest. I mean I get an urge in the morning but my mental state is clear enough that stretching or turning over gets rid of it.

What I attribute to the relatively easy 30+ days is other consistent maintenance practices. With a car you need to do periodic maintenance, putting fuel in there is the obvious but also oil changes, filter and all that.

People who only count abstinent days ignore this.

Though we all know the essentials like eating, exercising - both of which have mental equivalents, without even getting into your particular diet and exercise regime a very basic aspect is regularity. With some things it's not necessarily daily, like depending on the type and intensity of exercise you may do it every other day or more than once a day.

I also think it's a good idea to try new things and mix it up, but you do it in an organized way and do it long enough to get some idea of whether it was helpful or what effect it had. Nobody would eat the same thing all the time, but you probably want to make sure you have at least your macronutrients covered like enough protein in spite of it coming from a different source etc.

And I haven't even been doing everything, in my opinion aside from both mental and physical nourishment and exercise, which makes up 4 categories in a 2x2, the social aspect has been largely neglected in this lockdown situation. It's not completely absent, but I also think it is not THE most important (or just the only one that matters) aspect as so many people in recovery would believe. While part of an organized meeting is the mental nourishment, it's questionable whether the other categories are covered in that kind of approach where you just keep going to meetings, and maybe social contact even with people from those organizations outside of meetings doesn't even really talk about recovery in much depth.

So for me the social category can use more work, but being it's collective in nature I think everyone can do more to create a real support network not just kind of psychological hand holding in the "I feel your pain" way, but really actually understanding what's what so our experience can inform each other beyond just a few truisms that gets thrown around in recovery culture.

 

Mostly reading, the forum counts a little but it's really very low food for thought and social. Fuller mental nourishment would be a good book, ideally something that applies to reboot like I'm reading one on neuroplasticity, and social be fuller like a video call and not just text, also staying on topic mostly.