How To Avoid Relapsing After Rehab
Making the decision to enter into rehab is extremely difficult for any addict. Choosing to follow a path completely clean of alcohol or drugs is a fear-inducing prospect, amplified by the strong possibility that your attempts may result in failure. Many users are not so much afraid of coming down from drugs, but leading a fulfilled existence without them. Here are a few tips to help the newly sober embrace life after quitting:
1. LEAN ON OTHERS If you’re worried that you won’t be able to make it by on your own without booze or pills — you’re right. You can’t make it on your own, with or without substances to take the edge off. But you will succeed if you reach out to others for support. 12-step programs like AA are successful because they encourage building a network of trusted friends; they act as a safety net in times of trouble and reinforce the positive effects of sober living. Every person needs someone to turn to during both happy and dark moments. Maturity comes with acknowledging this basic human need and welcoming the help of others.
2. ACCEPT RECOVERY AS AN ON-GOING PROCESS Once you leave rehab, or vow to never swallow Vicodin again, it doesn’t mean your relationship with drugs is over. Like real, personal relationships — especially the unhealthy kind — it’s not common to just quit on a friendship without maintaining some emotional connection to the experience. Returning to the substances, behaviors or relationships that have given you both extreme joy and pain can occur to even the most strong-willed of people. Overcoming the urge to stop using is a challenge that takes a sustained effort to maintain, so don’t expect to let go of your dependence immediately.
3. FOUCS ON THE PRESENT What are you doing right now that is supporting a healthy and sober lifestyle? Is your “self-talk” encouraging or destructive? When you focus on the here and now and make healthy choices that are reflected in your current situation, you are more likely to choose positive paths down the road. In contrast, if you allow yourself to falter — like having just one beer on holidays — you are more likely to justify using in later scenarios — entering a chugging contest because all your friends are doing it on New Year’s Eve. Identifying triggers for substance cravings prior to their occurrence can prevent the pressure to use from becoming overwhelming.
Relapse is not only possible, it’s likely. But that shouldn’t dissuade you from trying to conquer your addiction. Remembering the realities of your disease and trying to incorporate the above methods can help ease the transition from life as a drug abuser to sobriety. Recovery is a journey; it can be a new and exciting time of self-discovery if you let it.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
Use the tools you learned at rehab.
This message is only for the ones that truly want sobriety. Many that leave rehab have no such desire or intention.
Most of us are on the pink cloud when we leave rehab. We’re clean and sober and life is anew. Then life happens around us and we don’t know what to do. Now is the time to apply what rehab taught us. Meetings, reading, meditation, support groups, use the phone, 12-step application in our daily lives- these are the things we need to employ
Many of us suffer from IDS though. It’s the I’m Different Syndrome. We’re not like those poor fools in the meetings and we don’t need to do all of these things. If we look closely though, we’re more alike than different. We have to live an entirely different life. We have to apply what was thrown at us in rehab.
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
You bring up a lot of interesting points, Jared. You’re right, it’s definitely up to the person to keep applying what they learned – to do the program – even after rehab is over. A high-quality treatment program won’t just throw the steps at you – it helps you grow and passes on the skills you need to survive after rehab without relapsing. My point is that a good treatment program prepares you for life after rehab, gives you the support resources you need to stay clean after rehab, so that it isn’t a shock.