Wellness is a paramount aspect of living your best life and regaining your identity after a substance abuse disorder. It goes beyond just not being sick and focuses on identifying your ideal well-being. Social wellness will be the focus of this post.
There are a number of sub-groups to wellness: physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, financial, occupational, and social. According to the World Health Organization wellness is, “”a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Wellness is an important topic to discuss in regard to recovery for a number of reasons. First off, because it can help a person avoid relapse. Figures from the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicate forty to sixty percent of people who go into recovery will relapse within one year. The flip side to this statistic is that as much as sixty percent of people in recovery don’t relapse. Another reason wellness can be helpful is that it offers people recovering with the necessary tools to create a healthy lifestyle. Recovery is a lifelong process that takes place gradually. The further into recovery a person goes the greater their opportunity to build good habits one after another.
Social Wellness
Our social wellness is determined by the people we spend time with and the community we are a part of. It is the relationships we have and our interaction with other people. Don’t underestimate the impact your communication and connection to others has on your overall health. Relationships can go a long way in providing encouragement when we fall on hard times. Establishing nourishing, supportive, and healthy connections with those around us is included as a part of social wellness. Developing an intentional response system is crucial in understanding how to balance all facets of our lives from social to professional and academic. Furthermore, social wellness consists of stabilizing healthy romantic relationships along with other platonic ones in your life.
Preserving ideal levels of social wellness provides you with the opportunity to create healthy relationships with other people. When we have an understanding social support system were able to establish assertive skills and be secure with ourselves under various social circumstances. When we have healthy social wellness we can develop healthy boundaries and properly communicate with those around us. Encircling yourself with helpful social peers allows for our self-esteem to grow. We can work to expand our social wellbeing by practicing active listening and empathy. Remember to cultivate the positive relationships you already have in life to encourage them to grow. Furthermore, you can join local community groups or organizations to expand your social circle.
