It’s about six months until (or after) Christmas, depending on the way you look at it. Maybe now’s a good time to talk about the gifts that keep giving.

These gifts aren’t something material, yet they can be much harder to attain and keep. They can also be more satisfying than other tangible presents. These gifts are treatment and recovery.

Here are some ways treatment and recovery can benefit you.

1. Better short-term health and safety. If you’re not drunk or high, you’re less likely to stumble, vomit, or experience seizures. You’re not incapacitating yourself and making it more likely that you hurt yourself, you can be hurt by others, or you can hurt others.

2. Better long-term health. If you don’t become high or drunk, you’ll have a lower likelihood of developing long-term health problems. These problems could include liver and heart conditions and even mental impairments such as dementia.

3. Better looks. This might sound vain, but giving up drugs and alcohol could improve your looks. You might appear less flushed and less dehydrated. Your eyes will no longer be bloodshot and unfocused. You won’t have track marks from using drugs or bruises from the accidents your drug and alcohol abuse causes. The prolonged use of some drugs also can cause tooth problems and other unfortunate side effects.

4. Better performance at work and school. If you’re abusing drugs or alcohol, there’s a good chance that your work or studies are suffering. You could be spending all your time using substances instead of devoting your full energies to work or school. Yes, you hear about functional alcoholics, but people who use large amounts of drugs and alcohol can’t do so forever.

5. Better relationships. Again, people who abuse alcohol and drugs choose to spend their time with those substances instead of with other people. Their substance use disorder could trigger tension, arguments, and even physical abuse within relationships.

Recovery and sobriety, then, can truly provide for people.