Mental Life skills benefit addiction recovery in many different ways. When someone is struggling with active addiction, they often lose or fail to develop certain life skills. While in recovery, they have the opportunity to develop or redevelop important life skills that will aid them in their path to recovery. These skills will help to ensure that they live a successful and productive life as a sober individual.

If you’re ready to make the big step of getting help for your substance misuse, our team at The Kimberly Center can help. We understand the value of life skills in recovery and help our clients learn these skills through our different treatment programs.

In What Ways Do Life Skills Benefit Addiction Recovery?

Life skills benefit addiction recovery in more ways than you may realize. In recovery, life skills can be a pretty broad topic. Life skills can refer to physical life skills like being able to drive a car or mental skills like the ability to cope with stress. These things can help you to secure employment, become financially stable, and live independently. They can also play an important role in preventing relapse in the future.

Recovery is referred to as a journey because it is not something that is accomplished in one day and then are simply done with. It’s a decision that you must make every single day for the rest of your life, and you must continue to put in the work to protect your sobriety. When you are equipped with life skills, you are better prepared to make good decisions and protect your sobriety.

At The Kimberly Center, we want to ensure that prior to leaving our facility, you feel completely confident and prepared to begin living your new sober life. Helping you to develop important life skills can aid in this effort.

What Mental Life Skills Benefit Addiction Recovery?

Mental life skills in recovery can be just as, if not more, important than physical skills. The following are some of the most valuable mental life skills to develop in recovery.

Communication

Communicating effectivley is so crucial in recovery because it aids in building strong relationships. While you were engaging in active substance use, you may have experienced strain in some of your relationships. Maybe some trust has been broken and healing needs to occur. In order for this to happen, you have to know how to communicate effectively.

This involves not only learning to communicate your feelings clearly but to be able to listen to what others have to say. Communication skills can be improved over time. They can help prevent arguments, develop new relationships, and solidify the relationships you already have.

Stress Management

This is another very important life skill. Perhaps you tend to turn to drugs or alcohol to cope during times when you’re feeling stressed. In recovery, this is no longer an option. This is why you must learn other healthy ways to diffuse stress effectively.

Some people engage in yoga or meditation to manage their stress. Exercise and working with a therapist are other great options to try.

Resilience

This is also very important in recovery. There are going to be ups and downs on your recovery journey and in your own personal life. When bad things happen or when you’re feeling down, you have to be able to bounce back without turning back to substance misuse. This is why developing resiliency is so important.

What Other Life Skills Benefit Recovery?

Some other life skills that are important to develop in recovery include:

• Maintaining a daily routine: Routines help increase productivity, provide structure, and help you to live a well-balanced life.
• Cooking: While you don’t have to reach professional chef status, being able to cook basic healthy dishes is important in recovery. It will help you save money by not eating out all the time and allow you to maintain a healthy diet.
• Maintaining an orderly home: If you’re going to be living independently, you have to know how to maintain an orderly home. This can include cleaning, doing laundry, and keeping things tidy and orderly.
• Getting a job: If you don’t yet have a job to return to after treatment, this is something very important to focus on. While in recovery, you can learn how to create a resume, fill out job applications, and conduct yourself during an interview. You can also learn the various basic skills necessary in many jobs, such as running a register or taking customer orders.
• Finances: It’s important that you know how to manage your finances while you’re in recovery. This includes creating and sticking to a budget, paying your bills on time, building up savings, writing checks, and more.
• Self-care: While it may seem like basic knowledge, it is important that you learn how to practice good self-care in recovery. This involves doing whatever is needed to care for yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically.

We are never too old to stop learning. Developing important life skills can take time, but it’s a very important part of the recovery journey. This just ensures that you have every tool possible in your pocket to live a productive and successful sober life. At The Kimberly Center, we want to ensure that all of our clients are fully comfortable and confident enough to begin life after treatment. By helping to teach these important life skills, we are ensuring clients are prepared to tackle anything that may come their way in recovery. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance misuse, we can help. Call (855) 452-3683 today.