02 Feb What Are The Perks of Alumni Participation?
Your recovery is a continuous journey that you will be on for the rest of your life. As an alumnus of a treatment facility, staying connected and getting involved with the current events of that treatment facility will help you stay on a positive track.
Many treatment centers have peer mentorships that will allow you to mentor someone struggling with substance use. Participating in such a program will make it easier for you to practice selflessness, a skill that will help you manage your mental health symptoms and have a continued successful recovery. A mentorship tends to be a mutually beneficial relationship that could give you a sense of purpose and accomplishment and remind you of how far you’ve come on your recovery journey.
An Exercise in Selflessness
When you practice selflessness, you’re able to put your problems into perspective. Participating as a mentor for someone struggling with substance use will allow you some distance from your negative thoughts and feelings, giving you perspective on your situation. Since you will have someone else to focus on, you can brainstorm coping mechanisms, tools, and solutions to help your mentee have a successful recovery instead of obsessing over your negative thoughts. Doing so will take the pressure off you to find an immediate solution to all the minor and larger-scale obstacles you may have in your life.
Remember, you can not solve all of your problems with immediate resolutions. It’s healthy to take breaks from your thoughts so you can regroup, which will help prevent emotional burnout.
Selflessness can also keep you grounded. It prevents you from having catastrophic thoughts that do not reflect the reality of a situation. Hearing stories from your mentees or peers about their struggles with substance use will remind you that your problems are not as big as you may think because other people are in similar situations as you. When you advise your mentee, you may realize that you have not been utilizing a tool or skill that could help you in your personal life.
Remembering How Far You’ve Come
Continuing your involvement with substance use treatment facilities will remind you of all the work you’ve put into your recovery and how much you’ve grown since the beginning of your journey. Seeing other people going through similar struggles that you previously had to overcome to get where you are now will be a reminder of how strong you are. It could also be a reminder of the control you now have in your sober life, giving you confidence and empowering you to confront challenges you may be currently facing.
The positive environment of the treatment facility will help you with your continued growth as well. Watching other people aspire to be the best version of themselves could reignite that drive in yourself to commit to your recovery or personal goals. The types of environments that you surround yourself in will reflect in your attitude. Being able to reconnect with your treatment facility will put you in an environment that values mental health above all other aspects of life. This will help you ignore distractions that might result in pushing mental health lower on your priority list.
It can be challenging to put your mental health first when chasing after a personal or career-oriented goal. The loftier the goal, the easier it is to get tunnel vision and let other essential aspects of your life go, such as not getting enough sleep or forgetting to set aside time in your schedule for self-care.
Staying in Touch
There are multiple ways for you to participate in a substance use facility as an alumnus. You can mentor someone who is receiving treatment from the facility, volunteer to help organize facility events, or stay in touch with peers and mental health professionals who have helped you along your recovery journey.
Having a support network is vital for your continued sobriety. The people who are most equipped to help you in a time of crisis are usually the ones who have been through the process of your recovery journey with you from the beginning. Think of ways to stay connected with your peers, such as organizing a social event, creating a group chat, or just checking in with your peers now and then to make sure that they’re doing OK. The more you keep in contact with peers that you trust, the better your support network can help you in a time of crisis.