Personal Accountability and Long-Term Recovery

Jan 25, 2021

Recovering from substance addiction may be hard work but is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It gives you the freedom to gain control of your life, build stronger relationships with yourself and others, and so much more. An essential key to your recovery journey is personal accountability.

What is Personal Accountability?

During rehabilitation, it is crucial to create a plan to stay sober after you leave the treatment center. This plan will help you when you are settling back into your day-to-day life. You need to know how to overcome any challenges you will face and you will need to work on your personal accountability skills.

Personal accountability is when individuals take ownership of their choices and actions and begin holding themselves to an elevated standard. As soon as he, she, this, that, or the other is no longer to blame for negative behaviors and outcomes, true healing can begin. Personal responsibility involves recognizing your recovery plan, sticking to the rules you have put into place, and taking maintaining discipline. It is something that takes time and work to develop.

Personal accountability is one of the greatest challenges you may face during your recovery. Holding yourself accountable and taking responsibility for your actions is hard work but important to maintaining sobriety. One of the reasons it is so difficult is because accountability is typically one of the first things to go when a person is struggling with substance addiction. People with addiction often hold themselves as less accountable for their actions, and their family and friends can also do the same. This form of enabling allows you to slip into dangerous patterns of behaviors where you don’t take responsibility for your actions.

Learning Personal Accountability

One of the most important parts of a 12-step-based rehabilitation program is teaching the techniques you need to develop good personal accountability. Some of these include:

  • Setting boundaries so you can build healthy relationships
  • Identifying triggers or other warning signals
  • Committing to meeting with a support group daily or weekly
  • Outlining steps that will help you to achieve your goals
  • How to avoid or combat negative thoughts or emotions
  • Building your self-esteem

Personal accountability is one of the most essential parts of recovery for a number of reasons. It helps to create a strong foundation for your sobriety journey. Addicts who struggle with accountability are more likely to sabotage their own recovery. Taking responsibility for yourself pushes you to put more effort into your sobriety, strengthening your commitment. It teaches you that your actions can have positive or negative outcomes that affect those around you. Accountability is empowering, giving you the motivation to reach your goals and overcome any challenges you may face.

Ways to Practice Personal Accountability

Accountability is not something that you have to do on your own. There are some great practices you should adopt to help you develop your personal accountability skills such as:

  •  Build a Support Network – A support network is a great way to connect with others. When you or another member of the network is facing triggers or struggling through a difficult or emotional period, you can help each other to overcome it.
  • Get Professional Support – Attending support group meetings or therapy is a great way to help you strengthen your accountability skills. You can learn important coping mechanism strategies that you can implement in your daily life. There also may be times where things you learn in treatment aren’t sticking, professional guidance can help you so much.
  • Ask for Help – Taking personal responsibility for your sobriety is hard but it’s important to not be afraid to ask for help when you need it. You can’t do it all yourself, so getting support can help give you more strength to move forward. Getting friend or family addiction support can make all the difference when you’re recovering.
  • Follow Through with Commitments You Make – Accountability means following through when you make a commitment. These can be commitments that you make to others as well as yourself.

Learning Accountability at Renaissance Ranch

At Renaissance Ranch, we help men who are struggling with addiction using a faith-based 12-step recovery method. We are focused on helping to prepare our patients to continue their recovery after leaving the treatment center and offer family programs and our Band of Brothers alumni program. We understand how important accountability is to the recovery process and help provide the techniques needed for our patients to develop their personal accountability skills.