As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the idea of “holistic health” just means considering a person’s overall health, to include spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and social.
Introverted Recovery is really your conscious decision to eliminate one aspect of recovery–the social aspect. You are losing 1 out of the 5 areas of holistic health.
Because of this, you need to compensate in other areas to strengthen your overall recovery program.
Traditional recovery relies heavily on the social aspect (AA/NA meetings). If we eliminate those meetings, how are we going to fill in that gap?
The answer is: those other 4 areas.
Make a holistic health plan in order to form your task list
How do you make a holistic health plan?
Really this is just figuring out what you can do for each area of your overall health.
Then, after you figure out those things, you segment it into daily tasks–assignments, if you will–that become bite-sized chunks that you can do every single day.
So for example, you will want something in your plan to address physical health. So this could be as simple as “take a walk.” You put this on your daily task list.
Next you consider the spiritual category, so you might add “meditate for 10 minutes” to your task list. Or “read my book about spirituality,” or whatever the case may be.
Next you consider your mental health, and it might be “see my CBT therapist today” or “Do my CBT exercises/homework.”
So the key here is that you:
1) Plan this in advance, before the next day even starts.
2) Identify the 4 areas of holistic health that you want to address: spiritual, physical, emotional, & mental.
3) Specify tasks in those areas.
4) Create a task list that you can check off in order to mark your progress.
Exploring new daily tasks and assignments
Every day, you need to come up with a set of tasks for yourself.
How do you know what tasks are helpful for recovery?
In order to simplify, let me suggest the following as a baseline that anyone could start off with:
1) Go on a brisk walk or hike (to your level of ability) = physical health.
2) Write in a journal = mental/emotional health.
3) Meditate = spiritual/mental health.
4) Read recovery/spiritual/personal growth literature.
5) Visit with a therapist or counselor = mental/emotional health. (*only certain days obviously)
The idea is that after you start on your journey you would be learning more about the recovery process, and more about yourself and how you fit into that recovery framework.
What does that mean?
It means that you might learn a new technique from your therapist that will become something you incorporate into your daily routine, because it works extremely well for you.
And it might mean that as you are reading various self help and personal growth books, you pick out a nugget of wisdom that you turn into action that becomes a driving force in your success.
As such, as you learn new things from your process, you will begin to see possibilities for new tasks that might go on your daily to-do list.
And as you begin to test and experiment with these ideas, you will begin to see what works for you and what does not.
For example, it is easy to fall into the trap of reading an endless pile of self help books, all the while believing that you are getting smarter and stronger as you take in more and more knowledge. But at some point, you have to realize that reading one more book after a pile of 20 isn’t going to change your life, unless you start applying some of the concepts you find within them.
That is what your daily task list is about, to some extent–actually testing and applying these concepts in your life so that you can see the benefits and how they apply to you.
When I read a book on Kindle, I highlight as I go, and export the highlights when I’m done with the book. Then I look at those highlights and try to come up with at least one or two action items that I can actually apply to my life, maybe put on the daily to-do list if it fits.
Otherwise, why read self help books? Why explore personal growth literature? You have to put that knowledge into action. Experiment to see what truly helps you.
Carry your task list on a note card or on your phone
In the old days (2001 in my case), I used 3X5 index cards to make my task list for the day. Then I would keep it in my pocket and refer to it throughout the day to remind me of my assignments.
But these days, it’s just more convenient to keep something like this in a notes file on my phone. Like many people, my phone is always in my pocket, so it is easy to take it out and see what I need to be working on for the day, and if I am on track.
Nevertheless, I do still like the idea of having an actual 3×5 index card in my pocket. It’s tangible. It would surprise me when I would find it in my pocket when I was going to grab my phone or my keys, and I would think “oh, I should take a look and see if I still have assignments left to do….” To get the same effect from your phone you would need to set phone alarms to prompt you to check your list or to do certain assignments–an idea that I’m not entirely against.
I think an actual note card in your pocket can work well in the beginning for this, and later on you will tend to have some of these things (or all of them) established as habits, and at that point it won’t matter as much. For example, someone who religiously takes a walk every day during their lunch hour no longer needs a reminder to do so, they are just already in the habit of doing it.
As habits form you can erase items and add new ones
As such, once some of these holistic health assignments fall into place as being “keepers,” they may turn into part of your regular routine. I had several examples of this–things like jogging, journaling, posting at an online AA message board, and so on.
So once I “locked in” a habit such as jogging, I decided that I needed to keep pushing in that area to find more opportunity for personal growth. So in terms of physical health, you started jogging or walking regularly, and you established this habit, now what else can you do? What about nutrition? Can you do some weight lifting? How about swimming at the gym? Start a sport like pickleball or tennis?
I don’t necessarily think it is enough to say “okay, I’ve got my walking routine now, every day I take my stroll at lunchtime, so I never need to look at the physical part of holistic health again.”
After your habit is established–such that you don’t even need to write it on your note card–it is time to get a new daily task.
The daily checklist is your lifeline
If you are not familiar with traditional recovery, let me tell you how it works for the typical AA member: The daily AA meeting is their lifeline.
Realistically, that is 99 percent of the AA program as it exists today.
And that’s fine. There is nothing wrong with this. Some people in 12 step programs will take offense at this and try to convince you that the real magic is in the 12 steps, but the truth is that for the vast majority of those people, they simply use the daily meetings as their lifeline. Their recovery runs on autopilot as long as they show up to that daily meeting. So they cling to that lifeline, and they defend it, and they even say things at AA meetings like “If you quit coming to AA meetings you are guaranteed to relapse” or “if you drank every day then you need a meeting every day.”
Your lifeline, on the other hand, is your daily checklist. A weekly checklist won’t work, because you can have gaps in the middle of the week, and an “off day” can take you down and lead to relapse. You need daily protection against relapse.
And just like the AA member clings fiercely to their daily meetings, you need to do the same with your daily checklist.
If you are casual about this idea you are setting yourself up for failure. You need to be dead serious about your daily checklist. It must become your lifeline; the top priority in your life.
The AA member stays sober because they go to a meeting every single day.
If you are not doing things for your recovery every single day, you are going to relapse.
This is why you need a daily checklist.
Do not assume that “because you are living a better life now, and you have made a few changes, you should be all set for recovery.”
Relapse is a constant threat, every day, for the rest of your life. Your addiction keeps evolving, even while you are clean and sober.
You can only hold relapse at bay one day at a time.
Therefore, you need to keep doing the work every single day.
Get organized. Make daily checklists. Cling to this method like your life depends on it.
Your overall health and balance in life will continue to improve this way
If you keep using the daily task list system then your life will keep getting better and better.
Every day you are forcing yourself to do one thing to benefit you physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
You explore new daily tasks. And you push yourself to do them every day like your life depends on it.
And over time you find that some assignments/tasks help you more than others. Habits form and are locked in.
A new habit formed this way becomes a permanent upgrade for your quality of life and your overall health.
Then you move on to the next assignment, not knowing for sure if it will be a “winner” or not. If it will have the potential to become a permanent upgrade or not.
Some tasks will. Most won’t.
Slowly but surely, as you move forward in recovery, you will pick up more and more of these habits–these permanent upgrades.
This is how you improve your life 1% every day, and unlock next-level recovery.
You can’t imagine how good your life will be a year from now, 3 years from now, 5 years from now.
It just gets so good because your growth, your health, and your success keeps improving and compounding on itself.
This is how you will implement Introverted Recovery into your life. Through daily actions that improve your life, your holistic health, and lead to personal growth.
This is the road to next-level recovery.
Leave a Reply