Recently, we wrote about the ways in which building a budget can help you successfully manage your money. The central idea of that post was that having a firm sense of your financial situation helps reduce stress around money—and reducing stress is a great way to support your ongoing recovery. In that entry, we provided some budgeting basics to get you started.
In this entry, we want to suggest creating a different kind of budget—one that can also lead to significant stress relief and support your recovery. Our focus here is on the onrush of news about current events that can lead to feelings of anxiety, which in turn can chip away at the foundations of the life you are building now that you are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
To put it simply, we suggest creating a “news budget” for yourself.
Notice that we are not suggesting that you avoid the news altogether. After all, being informed about what is going on in your community, your state, the nation, and beyond is important. When you stay up to date with what is happening, you can make informed decisions about a whole range of things.
But today’s media landscape—filled with 24-hour channels devoted to hot takes on the news of the moment, push notifications sending breaking headlines directly to our phones, and a social media situation in which news blends with outrage in our feeds—blasts us with content that can be truly overwhelming.
So, just as we provided budgeting basics in our previous entry about keeping your finances in order, we are going to provide some new budgeting basics here.
New Budgeting Basics
Ready to slow down the rush of news you encounter each and every day? Try these steps:
- Start and end your day without the news: Many people look at their phones first thing in the morning and last thing at night. That likely means some exposure to the latest news—and that can lead to starting your day off in a stressful way or amping up your anxiety right before you try to go to sleep. Easing in and out of your day is a healthier approach and more likely to support your recovery efforts.
- Set a news consumption schedule: This idea builds on our first suggestion. Consider setting aside a little time each day to pay attention to the news. Could you, for example, tune into a favorite news-related podcast or a newscast at the same time each day? Could you limit your news scrolling to, say, 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon? Could you turn off some (or even all) of the notifications on your phone so that you are not constantly being distracted by the latest headline?
- Choose a deeper dive rather than a quick soundbite: This might sound old-fashioned, but reading a local, regional, or national newspaper is still a wonderful way to get the news you need as well as features and articles that are less dire—or even enjoyable. A newspaper can often take a more thorough look at a topic, which means you do not get the most alarming news as mere soundbites that often lack context. Some podcasts also take deep dives into a topic.
- Take a day off from the news from time to time: You do not have to interact with the news every day. You might find that you benefit from taking an occasional break from looking at the news at all. In fact, you could choose a day of the week on which you will withdraw from the world of news coverage. For example, you might find that your week gets off to a better start if you do not dig into the news on Mondays. Or you might enjoy your weekend more if you do not spend time with the news on Saturday.
Here’s the Headline: We Can Help
Living in the grip of a substance use disorder is nothing but bad news. Drugs and alcohol chip away at your physical and mental health, upend your ability to work or go to school, threaten your relationships and your financial well-being, and can even put those around you at risk as you make poor decisions. Add to this litany of bad news that it is extremely difficult to overcome a substance use disorder on your own. The rigors of withdrawal can send you right back to the drugs.
Happily, we have good news: Getting yourself into treatment for a substance use disorder can allow you to reclaim your life. At French Creek Recovery Center, located in Meadville, Pennsylvania, we are wholly dedicated to helping the individuals we serve forge a new path free of drugs or alcohol.
Our residential treatment program includes medically supervised detoxification and a robust rehabilitation program during which we also treat co-occurring mental health disorders. When your time in treatment comes to an end, you can count on us for ongoing resources and support—including an alumni program to keep you connected to others who truly understand where you have been and where you are trying to go.
When you are ready to take back control of your life, we are here to help make it possible.