The two cornerstones of introverted recovery are holistic health and personal growth. You will want to understand both of these concepts and how they relate to your journey through recovery, as they are what keep you sober and thriving for the remainder of your life.
Holistic health is doing double duty: Not only do you want to embrace it to stay clean and sober, but you also want to simply live a healthy life in general. This is a win all around–no reason to shy away from this concept.
Let’s dig in.
What does it mean to have a holistic approach to recovery?
Traditional recovery is largely defined by AA and other support meetings, where the solution prescribed is a spiritual one. So AA essentially addresses 2 different “dimensions” of holistic health if you will, and that is the social and spiritual. You get social support from going to meetings and interacting with people there, and the program itself is based on working the steps to bring about a spiritual experience.
Two dimensions isn’t too bad if you are going this route, but it sort of stops there. Beyond that, the traditional path doesn’t really prescribe anything further in the way of holistic health.
So when we talk about a holistic approach to recovery, we are talking about a method that would include a broad range of categories of a person’s overall health: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, and so on. We might get even more granular in some cases and say that nutrition might be a category unto itself.
I can remember 25 years ago when I was first introduced to an AA meeting, it was in the basement of an AA club, and it was a smoking meeting, and honestly it was kind of hard to breathe. I looked around the room and I thought: “I would guess that most of these people aren’t big into exercise.” So I had that image burned into my mind, all of these people sitting around in a basement, with enough smoke in the room to choke you.
And I remember people in traditional recovery saying things like “don’t take on too much too soon” in regards to things like trying to quit smoking in early recovery. The idea was to get to 90 meetings in 90 days, at the exclusion of all other possible goals. It just felt like a very narrow concentration of effort.
Obviously that is a double edged sword: Having a laser focus on *only* quitting drinking could make you very successful at it. However, that laser focus could also have some disadvantages. Those disadvantages are what make up the advantages that are the holistic approach.
Having a holistic approach could mean things like:
1) Pursuing emotional well being through one on one therapy.
2) Having a regular exercise routine and fitness schedule.
3) Following a plan to improve your diet and nutrition.
4) Reading books about spirituality or self help and trying to apply the concepts in your life.
5) Quitting smoking, vaping, or other undesirable habits.
6) Having a standing “date” (such as coffee) with a friend or relative each week, for consistent social balance in your life.
7) Seeing a regular psychiatric professional, or using CBT or RET therapy for improved mental health.
You can see that, even if–as an introvert-you are weaker in an area such as social health–there are several other categories of holistic health that can make up for that deficit. And you can still find a creative way to at least dip your toe into this category to bring some balance into the equation.
Why it is important to consider your holistic health
Mike Tyson, the former champion boxer, once famously said:
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
This is a fitting quote when applied to addiction recovery, and it perfectly illustrates the needs for a holistic approach.
Tyson is saying that a fighter can go into a boxing match with a plan, having studied his opponents weaknesses, mapped out what punches and combinations he is targeting, and what strategy he is going to use. But then in the first 30 seconds of the fight, he gets hit so hard in the face it almost knocks him out, and all of those plans that he had are completely forgotten, and he is just fighting to stay on his feet at that point.
The same thing can happen to a recovering alcoholic or drug addict. You go to AA meetings every single day, you have your sponsor, you worked the 12 steps. You have your routine. Daily meetings. And then suddenly, wham! Life hits you. Hard. Where you are least expecting it to.
Maybe it’s a form of heart failure, and you can’t leave your house for a few months. So you lose your social support of the daily AA meetings.
Or maybe it’s a crippling and sudden breakup that you didn’t see coming, that crushes you emotionally.
Or maybe it’s a mental health break, brought on by any number of different possible factors.
There are all sorts of ways that life could suddenly “punch you in the face.”
It’s true that many of these situations can be dealt with just fine by rushing back to your daily AA meetings.
But not always. A few of those situations throughout your life will be unique. The meetings won’t always save you.
My friend in recovery, Bill, fell ill because he was sedentary and continued to smoke, even after his doctors told him that he needed to change immediately. The need for holistic health was practically smacking him in the face, and yet he just kept relying on AA.
Until he couldn’t even do that. He was too sick to leave his apartment. And he eventually drank again, and died shortly thereafter.
Back to the Mike Tyson quote. How does the holistic approach help you from being punched in the face?
It helps because working a holistic program allows you to be more prepared for the unknowable.
If you work a holistic program then you will be stronger, and more resilient, in terms of your physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual health.
So when life throws you a curve ball (i.e., you get punched in the face), you will be better able to handle it without resorting to your old solution of picking up a drink or a drug.
Use a flashlight, not a laser
Okay, one more silly analogy here.
I mentioned that AA used a laser focus, concentrating all of their efforts on quitting drinking, without considering any of the other aspects of holistic health.
Consider the idea that they have it right, but only for the very first part of recovery.
For the first few weeks or months of your journey, it is important to focus heavily on just not picking up that next drink or drug. That has to be your main priority, at least in the beginning. Laser focus.
But holistic health will quickly become the backbone of your recovery, and the primary way that you prevent relapse. Spread out your efforts, like a flashlight.
Holistic health is a more resilient and robust approach to recovery, and one that can be readily adopted by introverts.
Traditional recovery relies heavily on socialization.
Introverted recovery can avoid socialization almost entirely in favor of a more holistic approach.
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