Using SMART Goals in Maintaining Sobriety

Maintaining sobriety following treatment can be challenging, but it is an achievable goal that can be made easier by using SMART goals. SMART Recovery goals can be an effective tool in helping you stay on track throughout your recovery. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound. These criteria serve as guidelines for those in recovery to create goals that are clear, attainable, and have a defined timeframe. By utilizing SMART goals, people can develop a deeper sense of focus and direction in their recovery mission, which leads to improved outcomes in maintaining sobriety.

SMART Goals in Maintaining Sobriety

In SMART goal-setting in addiction recovery, there are five key characteristics of effective goals. These attributes work to ensure that your goals are clear, attainable, and aligned with your path to recovery. 

1. Specific: When setting goals, it is key to be as specific as possible. Creating vague goals can be difficult to follow and track and, therefore, will not be as effective in helping maintain sobriety. For example, setting a goal and saying that you aim to ‘feel good every day’ is nice in theory, but even the happiest people don’t feel good all day every day. A more specific goal can be to ‘journal for at least 30 minutes a day, every day.’ In this case, journaling makes this particular person feel good. Therefore they will create a goal that aligns with this notion. 
2. Measurable: A goal is measurable when you can assess when exactly it has been met. Measurable goals often involve quantifiable metrics such as durations, amounts, and frequencies. One example of a measurable goal can be to ‘attend a sober event once a month.’ Some people in recovery may experience difficulty with finding the motivation to go out and meet like-minded people, so this can be a great measurable goal to set throughout recovery.
3. Agreeable: When using SMART goals in maintaining sobriety, your goals should always be something that you align with. Everyone is different therefore, your goals may be entirely different than someone else in your program. When goal-setting in recovery, they should resonate with your inner values, desires, beliefs, and personal recovery commitments. Don’t be pressured into goals that you don’t agree with or see yourself following. 
4. Realistic: A realistic goal is one within the realm of possibility for you. Ensure your goals are attainable and reachable based on your current resources, commitments, and circumstances. For example, if you have children and cannot commit to a regime requiring frequent far-away visits or off-sites, don’t include anything of that nature as a goal. Setting unrealistic goals will just set you up for failure and make you feel bad for not achieving them. Realistic goals will foster motivation and cultivate positive feelings of success. 
5. Timebound: SMART goals in recovery require a deadline or a finite frame of time. Otherwise, this allows you to put things off and never address them. Whether it is a daily, weekly, or monthly goal, make sure to include time constraints to create a sense of urgency and promote accountability for your actions. Some examples of this may be, ‘I will practice meditation everyday for 10 minutes after breakfast,’ or ‘I will take a one-mile walk once a day to clear my mind,’ or lastly, ‘I will complete a recovery course online session in two months.’

SMART Goals in recovery are significantly impactful in maintaining sobriety and can be an extremely helpful tool for anyone struggling to stay sober. One of the key benefits of using SMART goals in maintaining sobriety is that they are there to help individuals create specific and detailed objectives. Moreover, SMART goals provide a measurable framework for people to track their progress. In setting clear and definitive indicators or milestones in your SMART goals, one can assess achievements along the way and offer opportunities to feel good about the work that they are doing to maintain sobriety.

SMART Goals are a helpful and valuable tool in maintaining sobriety. Individuals can enhance their focus and motivation in the recovery journey by ensuring that goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. SMART goals in maintaining sobriety are evident in their success rate and will offer individuals a smarter way to recover and maintain long-term sobriety through empowering techniques that will lead to fulfilling substance-free lives. 

At Dallas Detox Center, our luxury drug rehab in Dallas, Texas, is a brand-new, state-of-the-art drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Dallas. Our Dallas Drug rehab center provides evidence-based, supportive clinical care for those suffering from an addiction, as well as many aftercare programs and initiatives for individuals to explore to help maintain a substance-free lifestyle. We believe in treating the individual, not the disease. Please reach out today to recover and, further, to maintain your recovery using SMART goals programs and other post-recovery aftercare treatment options.