Social Support Humans rely on social support in order to deal with all the trials and tribulations of life.

This type of support comes from family, friends, work colleagues, or peers. This network of people provides important functions such as: A resource for advice and information. If people had to figure everything out for themselves it would make life almost impossible. Instead they rely on other people for information and this will often come from their social support group. Emotional support is important because it helps the individual feel stronger so that they can tackle difficult problems in life. Even if members of the social support network can’t help directly, they can still benefit others by just listening. Social support often involves physical assistance. This could involve anything from lending money to helping to complete a project. Feedback and appraisal allows people to effectively monitor their own behavior with the help of their social network. For example, if the individual makes unwise decisions this might be mentioned by friends and family. Addicts will usually get their social support from other substance abusers. This means that when they get sober they will lose this network of friends. This happens at a time when the individual may need a lot of support because of the challenges of early sobriety. It is therefore advisable that they build a new social support network of people who share similar goals. If they were to continue with their old friends it could easily lead them back to addiction. A fellowship will provide all the same social support functions that were once provided by other addicts.