How to Find Sober Community in Recovery

In this story, Kezia, a sober mom, writer, and the founder of Kezia Calvert Creative, shares the following tips on how to find community in sobriety, how to make friends as a sober adult, and emphasizes the importance of finding your own community in sobriety.

This post was created for the sober and sober curious looking for relatable, inspiring sober-positive content. The following are Kezia’s experiences, words and opinions. Enjoy!

When I first got sober I tried a lot of different groups, AA groups and sober clubs, but I didn’t initially have the feeling of belonging. Bear in mind that I was really getting sober for the first time during the pandemic.

All of these zoom meetings started popping up for all sorts of things! I would go to these meetings and keep my camera off. I wouldn’t talk to anybody.

I would just sit and listen to people stories and try and see myself in their story. I had to learn to trust myself to be in those places and to be open to the experience that, just maybe, there was a different way of living my life. That was step one.

It was out of my comfort zone to put myself out there, to have humility and let my guard down in the sober community, but I know I couldn’t recover in secret because it would just lead me back to how it was before: drinking and alone.

What I would suggest next to people, what really helped me, is to find at least one person for accountability that you share the highs and lows with. I kept relapsing so many times because wouldn’t share my truth with anybody.

It’s essential that you’re honest with yourself and another person. Especially if you drank in secret, recovering in secret just isn’t going to cut it.

You must do things differently. Take a chance on opening to someone — there are good people in the sober community who want to help you and who aren’t going judge you. Start with one person, and that will help you begin to find a sense of belonging around other humans.