Spending time at a drug addiction treatment program shouldn’t be the bulk of someone’s recovery process. In fact, it’s just the beginning—healing and maintaining sobriety is a lifelong process. If you are on the path to recovery, you should consider joining rehab support groups as part of your relapse prevention plan.
If you’re looking for a drug rehab center in Ohio, contact Ethan Crossing of Columbus online or call 855.476.0078. We offer drug addiction treatment and residential treatment programs.
4 Things You Can Do for Relapse Prevention
1. Go to Rehab Support Group Meetings
You should stay proactive and very much involved in your recovery process. Substance use disorders require long-term treatment – and support groups, which should be part of your relapse prevention plan, exist to facilitate that. Staying in contact with people in your support group, even just checking in with them occasionally, can help prevent relapse.
If your treatment center has long-term support services, take advantage of them. Having additional support will make it less likely for you to have a setback.
2. Never Forget What Your Triggers Are
Relapse triggers are unique for each person, but you should have identified what yours are through the course of your drug addiction treatment program. If this is not the case, consider going to therapy as part of your relapse prevention plan to find out what your triggers are.
Knowing your triggers is only half the battle – you also need to develop coping skills to deal with them when you come across them in life. You can also adjust your daily routine to avoid them entirely, especially if you’re in early recovery.
3. Take Care of Your Physical and Mental Health
Focusing on your health will improve your mood, cause less stress in your life, and give you enough energy to deal with triggers if you come across them. If you have co-occurring conditions like anxiety and depression, mental health treatment is even more important.
Make sure you eat a balanced diet, get enough exercise, go to sleep for at least seven or eight hours a night, and take any maintenance medications. Going to therapy and maintaining great relationships with family and friends helps, too.
4. Find Something to Be Passionate About
While going through a substance use addiction, many people find themselves consumed by addiction—directing most of their time and energy to getting and using drugs or alcohol. When they’re newly sober, though, there’s so much time that’s left for them to fill. This can lead to boredom and could be a relapse trigger in itself.
Sobriety can leave you with enough time and energy to get back into an old hobby you’d dropped before detoxing. You can also explore new hobbies, work toward a new career path, or participate in social activities like league sports or cleanups. Finding your passion leads to meaningful increases in your happiness and overall life satisfaction. It can decrease any cravings and help to prevent a relapse.
What Is a Relapse Prevention Plan?
When guests go back to normal life, it can be hard for them to find people that will truly understand what they’re going through. Sometimes, their family and friends don’t realize which situations, places, or people can be potential triggers for relapse. While being part of an addiction treatment program support group can help, the burden of maintaining their sobriety fully rests on them whenever they encounter a trigger.
That’s when having a relapse prevention plan can be essential. This plan is typically a cognitive-behavioral approach that helps people identify and prevent triggers and deal with them before they have a recovery setback. During a drug addiction treatment program, guests are taught techniques and are provided tools to deal with stressors and help avoid relapse.
Behavioral therapy is a common part of a relapse prevention plan. During therapy sessions, clients will learn about these tools and techniques:
- Coping skills: Therapists can help guests identify their triggers and also how to cope with being faced with them without having a setback.
- Clinical therapy: Excellent mental health care can expose the motivations of a guest’s behaviors, including past substance use. Relapse prevention should deal with thoughts and emotions that inhibit a guest’s growth beyond who they were before going through detox and treatment.
- Lifestyle change: Therapy sessions can also help a guest make adjustments in their life that will prevent relapse triggers.
Many substance abuse treatment programs end with creating personalized relapse prevention plans for guests. These plans, like alumni programs, are part of comprehensive rehab programs.
Find Rehab Programs at Ethan Crossing of Columbus
If you’re looking for a drug rehab center in Ohio that can help with relapse prevention, contact Ethan Crossing of Columbus online or call 855.476.0078. We offer rehab programs, along with drug addiction treatment and residential treatment programs.