Community and Accountability

Two of the biggest things in sobriety are accountability and community. It's been my experience that getting sober and staying sober is difficult without a community of people and once you get sober, accountability is key.

When it comes to traveling in sobriety, those two things are extremely important to keep in mind.

Let's start with the community part. If you travel solo, like I do for the most part, either you need to be comfortable with your alone time or you need to make sure that you can find community on the road. If you're a person that does meetings to stay sober, there's an app for that. It's called Meeting Guide, and it's available for both Apple and Android.

At this point in my sobriety, I don't go to a lot of meetings, but it's extremely comforting knowing that I can find one anywhere that I am. And worst case, technology is at a point these days, we're you can find a meeting online anytime of the day or night.

If you are not a person that does meetings, you can still find things to do locally that are alcohol-free. You can go to a museum, you can go to the local library, you can find online groups that are getting together for a particular purpose, like hiking for instance. Not every city has specific sober activities, but in a lot of cases many of these activities are not alcohol-focused.

Next I want to look at accountability. Wherever I travel, my immediate family and some close friends not only know where I'm at, but I also provide the address of the Airbnb that I'm staying at. I'm also very active on social media, so just by the virtue of the things that I do daily on social media, that in itself is a form of accountability.

You can also choose a trusted friend, whether they are sober or not, that you can reach out to when and if you need to. I know a lot of people, especially in early sobriety, that will do regular check-ins with those trusted individuals. Not only to be accountable, but to provide a little bit of comfort.

The most important thing, however, is that you are comfortable in general being out of your element. As I mentioned, I've been sober for a number of years and I'm not only comfortable being outside of my element, I have a very strong foundation with my recovery.

I would not have been able to do what I do now 10 years ago, because it didn't fit financially, but more importantly I don't think that I was completely comfortable. I'm not telling you that you should wait a certain amount of time before traveling, just make sure that you are prepared and that your sobriety is protected.

Sober travel is a gift and it's provided me more joy and happiness than I can even explain.

Enjoy the journey.

If you have a question or a comment, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or shoot me an email!