Recovery is about more than just not drinking.

While abstaining from alcohol or reducing alcohol use is an important first step in the recovery process, there are still many areas that need to be addressed if recovery is to be sustained in the long-term.

Front Door Health’s Addiction Treatment program is comprehensive and holistic.

We cover all dimensions of wellness - Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Mental, Occupational, and Social - with the understanding that these aspects are interconnected. A recovery program that doesn’t address all dimensions an integrative manner is likely to be unsuccessful.

This blog post will describe the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual dimensions of health and Part II will cover the Mental, Occupational, and Social Dimensions.

Physical

During periods of heavy drinking, it is common for physical health to be neglected. When we focus solely on getting alcohol and using alcohol, and recovering from its effects, good health habits such as eating a balanced diet and getting ample sleep become deprioritized or nonexistent. Your Care Team will help you stay on track with your self-care goals and keep up with medical appointments.

Spiritual

Spiritual health is about gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves – what drives us, what brings us peace, what gives us purpose. These are tough questions to answer, especially in early recovery, but with the help of your Care Team you can identify your values, goals, and activities that bring you satisfaction and fulfillment, which will make drinking less appealing.

Emotional

Having good emotional health is about identifying, expressing, understanding, and regulating our feelings. Many of us lack the vocabulary to express our emotions, which leads to the unhealthy internalization of feelings that would be better off expressed. Once we have the language to identify our emotions, we want to learn healthy ways to express them – could be to a loved one, therapist, or through journaling. We also want to identify the drivers of our emotions and think about what they could be telling us.

Keep in mind that everyone experiences “negative” emotions such as anxiety, worry, and anger, but being able to manage these feelings without resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as alcohol, will make us more resilient. Your Care Team will help you learn tools to manage and regulate your emotions.

To improve our health, we do not need to make a lot of changes at once: small, consistent changes over time go a long way. The good news is that the dimensions of wellness are interconnected: if our physical health improves, our emotional health may also improve and vice versa, which creates a virtuous cycle of improvement and progress.

Front Door Health provides you with a multidisciplinary team that is trained in addressing all dimensions of wellness to help you sustain your recovery and live the life you want. And we are here for you 24/7/365.

Call us today to get started: 773-747-5500.

Reference

“Dimensions of Wellness.” Roger Williams University, https://www.rwu.edu/undergraduate/student-life/health-and-counseling/health-education-program/dimensions-wellness