While I think balance is key for a healthy lifestyle, in early sobriety, I needed to immerse myself as much as possible in this new way of life. I needed to minimize distractions that could potentially take my eye off of the prize. So my replacements were activities that were oriented in the direction that I wanted to go.
Replacements for me were:
recovery meetings
talking with other alcoholics in recovery
reading recovery/spirituality books
participating on recovery websites such as SR
volunteer work for non-profit organizations that give back
As I got more comfortable in the new lifestyle, I was able to expand my tunnel vision view to incorporate activities that weren't necessarily recovery oriented, in order to work on achieving a balanced lifestyle.