Putting together a strategy for living after addiction is essential to staying in long-term recovery. It’s important to realize that creating a relapse prevention plan doesn’t assume you will end up failing. However, it’s essential to acknowledge the reality around the rates of relapse among people new to the process of recovery.
Putting a relapse recovery plan in place while attending an addiction therapy program in FL is a way of acknowledging the reality of your situation and making sure you have support available when things get tricky.
Understanding Relapse
The complexity of addiction and how it engulfs everything we cherish makes relapse a constant possibility, no matter how long someone remains sober. You must find new ways of taking care of your physical and mental well-being. You must rebuild bonds with friends and family, which means changing your old destructive communication patterns and practicing lessons learned while you made use of an addiction treatment center FL.
The reality of living after addiction, without the influence of drugs or alcohol, is a significant trigger of its own. Other outside influences also play a role in causing a relapse. It’s often a combination of different factors that also brings on the potential of sliding back into your addiction. Some warning signs that you may be well on the path to relapse include:
- Feeling that your support system is unnecessary.
- Having more difficulties in your relationships
- Feeling overwhelmed by different situations.
- Skipping your therapy visits, doctor’s appointments, or meetings
- Experiencing a sudden life change, like a death in the family
- Continually feeling bored or irritated.
- Failing to build structure into your life
Recognizing these signals when they crop up to go a long way towards keeping you from relapsing. Build this checklist into your relapse prevention plan, so you know what to look out for.
The Different Stages of Relapse
Relapse rarely happens in one day. Many people go weeks or months with no incidents before slipping. Understand the different phases of relapse makes it easier to understand when it’s happening as you go about living after leaving an addiction treatment center.
Emotional Relapse
Individuals in this phase usually don’t have drugs or alcohol on their mind. However, they become neglectful in practicing the coping tools and behaviors taught to them in therapy. That includes skipping meetings, breaking away from the support of family and friends, and failing to express the difficulty they may have living life post-addiction. Negative emotions and feelings build, leading to higher stress levels.
Mental Relapse
Thoughts of drinking or using begin creeping into your daily thoughts. The negative mindset established during the emotional relapse phase makes coping behaviors less effective. Being around anything that brings back memories of your prior lifestyle triggers the desire to slide back into addictive behavior. Your old lifestyle seems better compared to living life after addiction.
Physical Relapse
At this stage, you may have a glass of wine at dinner or go out and purchase our drug of choice. Without a relapse prevention plan, you risk falling back into compulsive substance abuse.
Essential Elements of a Relapse Prevention Plan
A relapse plan should be realistic and able to be ramped up quickly. Use a format you’re comfortable with. It could be a mobile app or a simple notebook. What matters is that the relapse prevention plan contains the following elements:
- People to call
- A place of safety
- Reasons you want to stay sober
- Strategies for dealing with stress
- Locations and schedules for support groups
- Numbers for hotlines and crisis centers
- How to locate emergency services
Think of your relapse prevention plan as a way of protecting yourself against giving up your hard-won recovery gains. Keeping it updated helps you be more honest about your circumstances and boosts your chances of long-term success in recovery.