Recovery

7 Tips to Blogging About Alcoholism Recovery

According to a recent survey, more than 14 million American adults have been diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. That number represents about 6% of the adult population in this country.

If you fall into this category, then you know first-hand how difficult it can be to overcome alcoholism and put the pieces of your life back together. It can also be just as hard to keep yourself on the neverending road to recovery.

Starting a sobriety blog is a great way to keep yourself busy when you’re going through the recovery process. It’s also a great way to help others who might be going through a situation similar to yours.

Just make sure you go about kickstarting a sobriety blog in the right way. Here are seven tips that will help you with blogging about alcoholism recovery.

1. Stop Waiting for the “Right” Time to Start a Sobriety Blog

When you first start walking down the road to recovery following a long fight with alcoholism, you genuinely might not be ready to start a sobriety blog. You don’t have to feel pressured to do it the moment you step out of alcohol rehab.

But far too often, people who have been checked out of rehab for months make the mistake of sitting around and waiting for the “right” time to start a sobriety blog to come along. They don’t realize that there isn’t a “right” time to do it.

As long as you’re physically and mentally able to start putting together blogs for a sobriety blog, you should do it. There is no time like the present to get your blog up and running, even if you’re still trying to sort your life out and get back to some semblance of normalcy.

2. Read Other Sobriety Blogs to Help You Establish a Voice

What “voice” are you going to use when you begin writing sobriety blogs?

Are you going to be a super-serious blogger? Someone who takes a more lighthearted approach to blogging about alcoholism? Or a combination of the two?

You can begin establishing a voice for your writing by spending time reading other sobriety blogs. You can see what you like, what you don’t like, and what seems to resonate the most with you.

Over time, you’ll be able to create a unique voice for yourself that people won’t find on other sobriety blogs. It’ll add value to your blog and give it a much better sense of direction overall.

3. Get Into the Habit of Writing Down Blog Ideas All the Time

Coming up with great blog ideas is one of the things that many people struggle with when they first set up a sobriety blog. They want to write about alcoholism and the road to recovery as much as they can—but they don’t always know where to start.

When you first launch your blog, you should spend an hour or two coming up with a long list of blog ideas. Then, you should add to that list over time as you come up with new ideas.

You never know when inspiration is going to strike you. You might be taking a shower one day when you come up with the perfect ideas for a blog.

Get into the habit of writing these ideas down so that you always have something ready to write about.

4. Keep Things Simple When You’re Writing Your Blogs

You’re not going to solve all the problems that people have when it comes to alcoholism with a single blog post. So why bother trying to do it?

You don’t need to post 5,000-word blogs every time you hit “Publish” for them to be worthwhile. In some cases, you don’t even have to write blogs that are over 100 words long for them to make an impact.

You should let the words flow naturally when you’re writing your blogs rather than trying to pen long pieces that take hours and hours to create. This will make blog-writing more fun for you and make your writing feel less forced than it might otherwise.

5. Aim to Inject Your Personal Experiences Into Your Blogs

If you’re in a position where you’re writing a sobriety blog, there’s a good chance that you have a long and storied history with alcoholism. Use that history to your advantage.

Find ways to sprinkle your personal experiences into your blogs when you’re creating them. This will make your blogs unique to you and help you create real connections with those people who read them.

6. Commit to Updating Your Blog on a Regular Basis

Is your ultimate goal to build up a big readership so that you can help as many people as you possibly can with your sobriety blog? If so, updating your blog early and often is going to be essential.

You don’t necessarily need to post a new blog every single day if you don’t have the time to do it. But you also shouldn’t allow weeks and weeks to go by in between your individual blog posts.

7. Use Social Media to Drum Up More Interest in Your Blogs

In this day and age, it’s never been easier to promote a sobriety blog and get people interested in reading it. Social media has made it possible for sober bloggers to cast a wide net when promoting their posts.

Sign up for social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more to promote your sobriety blogs to the masses. You can also use social media to field feedback from readers and to answer any questions they might have about your recovery.

Go Jumpstart Your Very Own Sobriety Blog Today

Studies have shown that anywhere from 40 to 60% of the people treated for alcoholism end up relapsing at least once. It’s not easy to stay on the straight and narrow following alcohol rehab.

One way to improve your chances of staying sober might be to start a sobriety blog. It’ll provide you with some much-needed accountability and make you feel like you’re making a real difference by staying sober and teaching others about how to do it.

Check out the other articles on our blog to learn more about turning yourself into a successful blogger.

4 Books About Addiction Recovery to Help Inspire Positive Change in Your Life

When recovering from any sort of addiction, it often feels like you’re all alone. The truth is that addiction is common. More people suffer from it than most of us realize.

Something good to come from this is the fact that those experiences help us in our own fight against addiction. Instead of letting that segregated feeling consume our every thought, we read about others who’ve gone through the exact same thing.

If you’re in a dark place right now, try reading some of these books about addiction recovery. They’ll help far more than you think.

1. Black Out by Sarah Hepola

This book tells the story of a woman who goes on a feminist and freedom-inspired drinking binge that doesn’t ever seem to stop. In the end, everything catches up with her and she must find a way to begin that long road to recovery.

Humor, sorrow, and self-realization are only some of the starring emotions portrayed in this book. A witty writing style makes this book a quick read even though the heavy topics don’t make it easy to digest.

But despite the darker tones, there’s a hint of quirk and amusement that shine in this all too familiar story.

2. How to Grow Up by Michelle Tea

Coming to the realization that something needs to change is one of the most difficult parts of recovery.

This entire journey is what makes this book one of the more interesting recovery books around. It reads more like a how-to book than a memoir at times, guiding the reader through each step.

Follow along with the story as the character finds out that their addiction isn’t what they treasure most in life.

3. Party Girl by Anna David

This story focuses on the ultimate question all addiction recovery books need to ask: what do I do now?

After the protagonist breaks free of her addiction and is steady on the road to sobriety, she’s faced with obstacle after obstacle. Each one dents her new sober armor a little bit, making the next one even hard to face.

This book does a great job of showing the struggle of someone who is doing everything the right way but needs to stay strong against all odds. Nothing worth having is ever easy. 

4. Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl

Even those who are both successful and creative struggle with addiction. This gripping memoir show this with sharp clarity.

Heroin addiction causes this writer to make many mistakes throughout his life, even against his own better judgment. It shares with the world all of the terrible side effects of some of the harshest of drugs.

The way it’s presented in this book makes the entire journey both captivating and educational.

The eventual and heart-wrenching downfall is hard to swallow. But it leads to a better life for him and his family.

Let These Books About Addiction Inspire You

With these books and their experiences at your side, addiction recovery becomes a little easier. It’s always good to learn from both the mistakes and victories written upon those pages.

But we all have our own stories to tell. The books about addiction recovery listed above are only a few points of view.

Your own story might help someone else in their recovery someday. So why not try your hand at writing your own memoir? Don’t forget to check out these tips on becoming a better writer to give your memoir the best start possible.

7 Tips To Promote Your Alcohol Recovery Blog

The road to alcohol recovery is a long and difficult one. It is a roller coaster of emotions and obstacles that sometimes make the temptation to go back overwhelming. Another reason why the road is so difficult to walk is because it never ends.

Reading about others’ roads to alcohol recovery helps, though. It lets others know they are not alone in their struggles. Additionally, building a successful alcohol recovery blog will let you know that you aren’t alone in your own struggles.

How To Promote Your Alcohol Recovery Blog

There are several marketing tactics that you can use to make your blog a success. The most important tactics, though, are as follows.

1. Create High-Quality Content

It goes without saying that if you want your blog to be a success, it has to contain high-quality content.

To produce such content, your blog needs to be unique. It needs to tell your story and what you’ve learned about your various struggles. Talk about how you took back control of your life.

Content like that is powerful stuff and allows your audience to connect with you on a personal level.

Something else you might consider including is statistics and quotes from experts. Facts speak volumes about your commitment to publishing reliable content. When it comes to alcohol addiction, they also stir powerful emotions in your readers.

Additionally, consider placing original images such as infographics and photos in your blogs. Humans are stimulated visually, so such inclusions grab your audience members who prefer viewing over reading.

2. Implement SEO

You could make a million great blog posts about self-improvement. But no one will read them if no one knows they’re there.

Search engine optimization (SEO) will help readers find your blog. SEO entails certain tried and true web tactics that enable consumers to easily find relevant content. Common tactics are as follows.

• keyword usage
• backlinking to internal links and credible external links
• tailoring content to target audiences

In the case of an alcohol recovery blog, your target audience is recovering alcoholics and their friends and family members. You may also want to include anyone wanting general information about the recovery process. Regardless, you need to tailor your content so it speaks directly to your target audience.

When writing, don’t forget to include keywords. Your keywords are the words potential readers are most likely to search. Include those words not only in your blog content but also in your headers, meta descriptions, and images’ alternative text.

When you backlink to your past content, you increase that content’s engagement. Including links to credible websites such as Alcoholics Anonymous and the National Institute on Drug Abuse boosts your own credibility. Additionally, search engines are more likely to rank your blog high if you’ve included internal and external links in your content.

You can track and analyze your blog’s engagement via Google Analytics.

3. Use Social Media

Another must for leading traffic to your blog is social media.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have the advantage of already having an audience. Your purpose on social media is to attract the portion of that audience that includes your target audience.

You can do this a few different ways. First, follow and like bloggers who also write about alcohol recovery. Doing so will put you on those bloggers and their followers’ radar.

Next, use hashtags to draw followers who also use those hashtags. Make sure the hashtags are relevant to your blog.

Finally, post links to your content. Use social media to tell your followers when you have new content available. The links will take them to the content, boosting your blog’s traffic.

4. Develop A Schedule

Developing a schedule has a few different benefits.

First, it will get you in the habit of posting new content regularly. In turn, your followers will expect new content from you regularly.

Second, you will know when you have a great window of opportunity for posting new content. Every search engine and social media platform experience higher traffic rates during certain times of the day. If you post then, you will increase your chances of engagement.

5. Engage Followers

Having great content and maintaining a social media presence isn’t enough. If you want to build a solid follower base, you need to interact with your followers.

Likewise, the online community is a kind of recovery village full of those who are part of your target audience. To become known in The Recovery Village, you must engage in conversation with the members thereof.

When followers comment on your blog entries, respond right away. Do the same when they comment on your social media posts. Engaging them in conversation shows them that you care what they have to say.

But don’t just engage your followers. Engage your fellow bloggers as well as subject matter experts in conversation. Developing friendships with them will cement your position as an expert within the online community.

6. Host or Participate in Events

Once you have established yourself, a great way to reach even more readers is hosting or participating in events.

The Internet has proven an ideal platform for various events, including contests, interviews, and webinars. Often, companies and organizations use these Internet events to advertise their wares. They invite well-known bloggers and other influencers to host or participate.

As part of the bargain, influencers gain extra exposure from their participation. They are also sometimes associated with the company thereafter.

7. Develop An E-Mail List

Some people don’t check social media often. Others aren’t willing to get online just to check your blog for new content. The best option to keep those people invested in you is developing an e-mail list.

That way, you can send them alerts when you publish new content. You can also follow up with readers who were maybe on the verge of engaging but held out for whatever reason.

E-mails feel personal, especially when they come from an individual and not a company or organization. A small nudge in e-mail form from you likely will be all it takes to entice those readers into engagement.

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