Most alcoholics find safe harbor in their recovery routines and comfortable surroundings. The support of friends and family, familiar meeting places, and yes, having those that know of our plight helping to assure our accountability all add a measure of safety and help staying sober at home an easier task. But what about those that travel or who are called away unexpectedly, especially for emotional issues like a death in the family or severe business trouble.
Nothing but strangers around, a lonely hotel room, and only the company of one’s thoughts can be a recipe for disaster for an alcoholic with no anchor to keep from drifting.
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Many people do relapse when away from familiar surroundings because it is all too easy to fall back into addictive thinking when one begins to search for something “settling”. Unfortunately familiar to us all is a hotel bar or airport lounge.
I travel for a living staying away from my home office more often than not and keep these dangerous scenarios in mind even though I rarely feel the pull these days. One of the reasons I don’t get the urge is because I have developed not one, but many anchors that hold me steady in my recovery.
The easiest to deploy and the most important anchor of all for me is a nightly call home to my wife, but there are many other things. Books, a continuous story that I follow from home, to plane, to hotel and back is helpful. Good hygiene, yeah I know that sounds weird but ironing and shaving my head cue ball-bald every morning is a very grounding experience. And of course there is my blog.
It doesn’t really matter what your anchors are as long you don’t sit alone in a hotel room just listening to your thoughts… always dangerous for an alcoholic. So call the wife or a friend. Go to the hotel fitness center. Work on an impossible cross puzzle.
Just make sure you drop anchor.
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It doesn't always take traveling or an emotional issue to make us come undone. Sometimes just a simple lapse in our normal routines have us floating around feeling unanchored (is that even a word?).
I was actually just lying in bed this morning thinking about why I have been feeling a little off lately. It occurred to me that I haven't been doing some of the things that I adopted as my normal routines.
This post was a nice reminder about how important those routines are. Thanks
travel may make it easier, but just plain old complacency can be just as dangerous.
I am in the very initial stages where I am building safe harbors in my familiar surroundings itself. God forbid, if I am called anywhere away from my still-not-safe but-safe-enough surroundings, I don't know what I will do
if you have to leave safe harbor an anchor helps you to keep from drifting while in foreign ports. Your blog is an excellent anchor, you can access it and write from any location. Same goes for the rest of the online recovery community.
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