Articles & Resources

Tips for Your First 90 Days of Sobriety

You’re getting sober! Congratulations! Everyone here at Hope is Alive is glad to hear it.

We also know that those first 90 days can really throw you for a loop. So we asked some of our staff members with multiple years of sobriety to share their pointers about what you might expect, some of the difficulties that may arise, and what you can do about them.

Here are a few tips for your first 90 days of sobriety.

1. The Pink Cloud

The Pink Cloud is a phenomenon where you suddenly feel high on life—the grass is greener, the birds are chirping more sweetly, the colors are vibrant, things are beautiful, and you love life. All the feel-good chemicals are firing in your brain.

And then you fall off. That’s just part of the ride. It’s your brain getting readjusted to living without the substance you’ve been feeding it, so it has to level itself out.

So what do you do when you fall off your pink cloud? Get grounded! Take comfort in community, mindfulness practices, or service through volunteering. These are all ways to reconnect with yourself.

“Knowing scientifically what was happening in my brain gave me permission to understand and accept what was going on and to be okay with it,” said one of our alumni. “It helped me to zoom out and see what was really happening.”

2. Ride the Waves

After detox, it often feels like being on a beautiful beach, soaking up the sun. You get in the water, and then a wave comes out of nowhere and hits you. The waves keep coming—big, strong, and wild. Eventually, you make it back to the beach.

This is your brain attempting to restore balance. It’s natural. The only way to deal with it is to ride those waves. Accept them for what they are, let them pass, and then get back into the water of life.

3. Sleeplessness

The sleeplessness of early sobriety is tormenting, terrible, and pretty standard. Your brain, your hormones, and your body chemistry are still leveling out, and it takes time to regulate. In the meantime, you can kiss regular sleep goodbye.

So what to do? We recommend steering clear of sleep aids, but you can use melatonin, essential oils, or environmental supports to help: sound machines, reading a book, or taking a warm bath before bed. Staying active during the day and eating healthy can also help.

It’s tough to believe, but eventually you will sleep.

4. Impulsivity

Addicts are lovers of chaos. That means that during your first few months of sobriety, you’ll want to do or say impulsive things. If your mind tells you to go left, pause, consider, and maybe go right instead.

Recovery is a process of learning to self-regulate, building self-awareness, and discerning what’s for you and what isn’t.

So what do you do when you’re feeling impulsive?

“Get to the closet,” says one of our alumni—not necessarily a literal closet. “Get on your hands and knees or sit cross-legged and connect with yourself. Connect with your higher power and plead for strength and sanity. Feel yourself in your body. Get grounded again.”

5. The Battlefield of the Mind

Early sobriety can feel like a battlefield in your mind. What can you do when you’re fighting that war internally?

Let others into it. Keep yourself accountable. Open yourself up to your community. Don’t be afraid to take small steps to break old thought patterns—like eating a piece of chocolate instead of turning back to substances.

Helping others is also powerful. Your mind has been self-focused for so long; shift that focus outward. Give someone a ride to a meeting, clean the house for a friend, ask someone how their day is going, volunteer, or even pass out granola bars to unhoused people in your community.

Moving Forward

This isn’t everything you’ll experience, but it’s enough to prepare you for some of what you’ll face in your first 90 days of sobriety.

Remember: everyone here at Hope is Alive is for you, believes in you, and wants to see you undergo radical life change.

Does Your Story Matter?

"Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me." Psalm 66:16

In the book of Mark, there’s a story of Jesus casting out a legion of demons from a man who lived in the tombs across from the shore of Galilee. This unrestrainable man broke chains, shattered shackles, cried out in the night, and cut himself with stones. After Jesus delivered him, he was miraculously healed. When Jesus got in the boat to leave, this man wanted to go with him. But Jesus said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” Mark 5:19

After my daughter passed into Heaven in 2014, I didn’t have many people around me to talk to about it. I had to lean on God for my strength. He gave me such favor in his presence and messages to me, and in such a personal way, that I had to talk about it whenever I was given the opportunity. At first, I was hesitant to tell all that God had done because I doubted others might believe me or would judge me in some way. But, just as the Bible tells us, my story made an impact on others who were struggling with loss.  Being able to share all that God has done in your life is your story. It is what allows others not to be afraid to be vulnerable and will give them permission to share their story as well.

Since becoming a Hope After Loss leader, I have often wondered what about our community makes our time together so impactful? I believe a great part is due to our willingness to share our stories. To be bold and courageous about what God has and is doing in our grief journey. When God is the center of our conversation, we are learning to trust that we are in a safe enough place to talk about him and all he has done. Where would we be without him drawing us so close to him, closer than we have ever been? Psalm 34:17-18 says, “The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

I challenge you to think about who you are around during your daily interactions, great or small, that would benefit from hearing your story. It can be something as simple as saying, “Isn’t it great to know we have a loving God?” to someone in a brief passing, or something about how God has changed your heart for someone who was difficult to be with. There are more opportunities to do this than you think! Ask God to show you. Whatever he gives you to share, I guarantee you, he will bless it. He will guide your words and thoughts, if you are willing to be a spokesman for his grace and loving kindness.

We have an enemy, the devil, who doesn’t want us to tell what God has done in our lives. He wants us to keep it hidden away. He doesn’t want us to tell how we traded in our broken hearts and all our other shattered pieces for a beautiful new vessel that God has shaped for his glory!

What has God done in your life? If you wrote it all down, how long would your list be? Mine would be very, very long and goes all the way back to when I was around five years old. I can assure you though, that before I crashed in the pain of living without my daughter, I wouldn’t have thought that sharing my story of all God has done for me was as relevant as I know it is now.

Every redemption story can be like a seed—when God plants it into the heart of another person, it will become a plant that bears more seeds and fruit. 

Don’t hide your story—tell it!. If you’re not sure how to do it, just start by saying, “ This is who I was. This is what Jesus did for me. And this is who I am now.” Use your disappointments and struggles as the part of your story that shows God's best work! Because with God, your wounds can become the greatest source of your new beauty! As it says in 2 Corinthians 11:30, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

With HOPE,

Rhonda Kemp, Laci's mother

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For more information, visit:

FindingHope.Today

HopeAfterLoss.Today

The Missing Peace

Peace is something we all seem to be continually searching for. Commercials entice us, promising peace through buying luxurious skin care products or cars with a smooth ride or mattresses that provide a perfect night’s sleep. Many of us dream of a relaxing vacation on the beach or a day at the spa or just time off work to find some rest and relaxation. Our souls long for peace. It’s nice when we are able to catch a bit of it here and there. But peace is fleeting—all too soon, reality comes along and messes everything up!

Often the troubles of this world keep us from feeling like we could ever experience true peace. There is just too much heartache and pain. But Jesus promises a special kind of peace for us.

In John 14:27 He tells his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” 

Jesus speaks of a peace that is different than anything the world has to offer—better than any kind of peace we have ever experienced before. When Jesus spoke the words in that passage, He knew He was about to sacrifice His very life, and that that sacrifice would restore the relationship between God and His people, which would bring about true, lasting, and eternal peace. 

Thanks to His sacrifice, we can come before our Lord and Creator and lean on Him when we are hurting. Even though pain is very real in this fallen world, through Christ we can have an underlying sense of assurance that God is holding us and caring for us. We know He is right there with us, guiding us and strengthening us. 

Peace is not necessarily the absence of trouble. This world is full of trouble. But when we seek God, we can have an untroubled heart, even in the midst of a troubled world. 

The great theologian St. Augustine says it beautifully: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

When we find our rest in Christ, our hearts are not confined to yearning for happiness solely in this present life. We keep our immortality in mind, knowing that a day is coming when we will rest in perfect peace for all eternity.

Valentine's Day falls right in the middle of the month and when most of us think about that day, we tend to think about flowers, chocolates, candy, cards or special dinners. As a young mother I would focus on my children being my valentines. I loved surprising them on that special day with candy, a card, and maybe a stuffed animal or Hot Wheels cars. Then at night we would make their favorite dinner and watch a movie or play a board game. I wanted them to feel special and loved.

Even though we feel such great grief over losing someone to addiction, suicide, or murder, the love we have for them never goes away. We feel a hole in our heart they once occupied. Since losing Jordan, I have learned we grieve so hard because we loved so hard. I was so angry at God after losing Jordan, like He didn’t love me or He wouldn’t have taken my son. It took me many years to realize God didn’t take Jordan—He saved him. Now I focus all my love on what Jordan did for me and others.

A friend of Jordan’s reached out to me through my sister today. She had just recently moved into a new home and was going through boxes; she happened upon Jordan’s CD case with all his favorite music. She said Jordan was so helpful to her when she was going through a difficult time in her life and she wanted me to know that piece of him and give back his belongings. I may not be able to touch him or hear his sweet voice, but I feel his love through God’s grace.

It reminds me of 2 Corinthians 4:17-18: “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

In closing, God's word shows us that we don’t grieve without purpose and His presence is all around us. I encourage you to dive into the love you have for your loved one that has left us too soon and share your memories with each other. God bless you.

Cindy Bowling

An Excerpt from 10 Years Sober by Lance Lang

Hitting Rock Bottom

April 6, 2011, was the day of my radical transformation. I was living all by myself, having pushed everyone away. My girlfriend Ally had finally moved on. Friends had given up on me. And I was guzzling upwards of 50 pills a day.

I was so hooked on opiates that I would roll over in the middle of the night and take a handful of pills just to fall back asleep. My body was not my own; it was simply a vessel that kept itself functioning solely so it could seek out its next fix.

This level of addiction didn’t happen overnight. It took ten years, the last couple of which were absolutely brutal.

The Daily Cycle

I had a morning routine just to get myself to a place where I could function at work. Once there, it was Red Bull and vodka at 9:30 a.m., maybe three or four lines of Oxy off my desk, and a handful of Lortabs. That would get me through a couple of hours.

By 11:30, it would start wearing off and my mind would begin racing about when I would take my next round. I would start setting up pickups with my dealer, sometimes leaving in the middle of the workday to drive across Oklahoma to meet him.

Or I would hit more Oxy off the desk and take another handful of Lortabs to finish the day. Then I’d come home, repeat it a couple more times, and nod off through a Netflix documentary.

That was a good day.

On a bad day, my addiction led me to break into co-workers’ homes, steal money from everyone I knew, pawn jewelry, rob my grandparents, and commit countless other despicable acts. All just to stay medicated. I was enslaved, pathetic, lonely, and a physical wreck.

A Confrontation

That all led up to April 6, 2011, when my uncle knocked on my office door, dragged me into his office, and finally told me who I had become.

“You are a liar,” he said. “You’re a cheater. Everyone here hates you. I know you’re doing illegal things. Your family is worried sick. You’re a wreck, and if you don’t get a plan, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, then this is over.”

I had been confronted before—by my parents, Ally, her family. I had been caught stealing, lying, and worse. But what I had never done until that moment was truly confess.

That was the day I stopped running.

The First Confession

I was scared. Scared of withdrawals. Scared of what my body would do if I stopped. I had no concept of sobriety. I had hardly even heard the word and certainly had no idea what it meant.

I thought I would take pills every day for the rest of my life. Somehow, in my twisted mind, I believed I could manage it.

But I was lonely. I was depressed. And more than anything, I was deceived.

Thankfully, on that day, I could finally see the truth. With my back against the wall, I was able to utter the first few words of confession:

“I’m hooked and I don’t know what to do. I’m scared.”

I started crying. My uncle didn’t know what to do with me, but Jesus did. In that moment, something clicked. I believe confession began to loosen the chains of bondage I was in. All the walls I had built, all the excuses I had shouted to drown out the truth about myself—began to crumble.

For years I had lived half-truths. But that day, I laid it all out for the very first time.

Detox and Surrender

My uncle got me help, and I went into detox just days later. I’ll never forget being there on Easter Day in 2011. My parents are pastors, and after leading services that Sunday, they came to see their son in a state-funded detox facility, dressed in medical scrubs and full of medication.

Over ten days, I was slowly weaned off drugs and alcohol. I smoked cigarettes and tried to stay alive while my mind raced in its old cycles.

I convinced myself—and tried to convince everyone else—that I was fine, that I could stop after detox. I even convinced my parents to let me spend one night at home before going to treatment.

That night, I paced the house, chain-smoking, withdrawing from the detox meds, and frantically texting my dealer who wasn’t responding. It was one of the longest nights of my life.

But it ended in surrender.

Day One

The next morning, I took the step. I went to treatment.

And that was Day One.

You can order the book 10 Years Sober or explore its accompanying ten-day scripture reading plan on YouVersion.