Relapse Prevention Strategies: How to Stay Sober

relapse prevention strategies

The slog of detox is behind you. The intense, lengthy inpatient treatment is only a memory. Outpatient care went smooth and sober life was treating you well.

And then it happens. Seemingly out of nowhere. 

Someone invites you for a drink, just one. Or you find yourself in a situation that you weren’t mentally prepared for which triggers you to take a hit of your old drug of choice.

One drink turned to 10, one hit turned into a bender. You wake up groggy the next day, maybe even in the hospital.

You’ve relapsed.

You’re embarrassed and ashamed, feeling like you’ve failed. Guilt creeps in for the time “wasted” in rehab.

But here’s the thing, relapse isn’t failure. It’s part of the process for many and it just means your strategy for treatment needs to be modified.

That said, there are things you can actively do to prevent relapse and avoid the hurt that comes with it. 

Relapse Is Fairly Common

Before jumping into those, just how common is relapsing? The National Institute on Drug Abuse puts the relapse rate for substance use disorders at 40-60%. Pretty sobering numbers, no pun intended.

It’s really important to internalize and take to heart the message that relapse is not a failure. The  American Society of Addiction Medicine definition of addiction sheds some light on why:

“Addiction is a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences. 

Prevention efforts and treatment approaches for addiction are generally as successful as those for other chronic diseases.”

The chronic nature of substance use disorder and addiction is what makes relapse so common. Our brains and bodies become conditioned and used to drugs or alcohol. It becomes our “normal”.

Relapse Prevention Strategies

Even though somewhere on the order of half of people will relapse, it doesn’t mean it’s a requirement. Relapse is very much a part of recovery for some while others can kick the habit without going through a relapse.

Planning can help you immensely in your times of struggle and weakness. Some relapse prevention strategies to consider are:

 

Know What Triggers You

This is huge. You need to know and define what triggers your cravings so you can avoid it. It may be certain people, places, activities or even feelings. Whatever it is, be aware and act accordingly to stay out of those situations

Support Groups

There’s no need to go through anything alone! Plenty of people have gone through what you have and are available as resources to get you through it too. Groups like Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous can be extremely helpful in keeping you on track and preventing relapse.

Self-Care

Taking care of yourself is essential.

Learn to lead a healthy lifestyle that compliments your new drug and alcohol-free life. Eat healthily. Start a workout routine and stick to it.

Make sure you’re getting enough sleep.

Be good to yourself and be forgiving.

Get Busy

Nothing distracts you more from the pull of old habits like being too busy to notice a craving. If work isn’t keeping you busy enough, consider volunteering or a sports league. Grab a gym membership. Pick up a hobby.

Redefine Fun

You very likely glamorized drugs and alcohol as being “fun”, so to avoid relapse, changing what constitutes fun in your mind is crucial. Your new hobbies should be fun, your exercise regimen, cooking those healthy meals, etc. Find your new fun and shift your definition.

Above All Recovery Knows Relapse Prevention Strategies

If you’ve dealt with relapse before or are laser-focused on making sure it doesn’t happen to you or just concerned about a loved one who recently got sober relapsing, reach out to us at Above It All Treatment Network. We’re a free resource with over a decade of experience assisting people in finding recovery and can connect you with those who can help you prevent relapse.

 

Meditation for Addiction Recovery

meditation for addiction recovery

To put it bluntly, addiction recovery is a complex process. There are a lot of moving parts and reasons why a person falls into addiction in the first place, so it follows that working one’s way out won’t be straightforward either. Which is fine, the intricacies of life are what make it beautiful.

Given that, an ever more potent tool in the recovery toolbox has become alternative therapies like meditation. These types of treatments strive to compliment the clinical side and create a much more holistic recovery experience that pays the appropriate attention to all aspects of the body and mind.

The mind, after all, becomes as addicted as the body so while our bodies crave drugs, so too do our minds. Our thoughts dictate our actions and drug and alcohol abuse toys with our thinking and decision making.

Meditation is a therapy that focuses squarely on the mind, fostering and nurturing the ability to take control of your thoughts and help deal with triggering situations in the future. 

What Is Meditation?

Let’s consult the dictionary here, Cambridge Dictionary defines meditation as “the act of giving your attention to only one thing, either as a religious activity or as a way of becoming calm and relaxed”. 

Giving attention to only one thing. That’s big, don’t brush past that. Meditation, to the uninitiated, often carries the connotation of someone sitting there quietly and just kind of zoning out which is a caricatured view of what’s actually happening.

Meditation is something done with intention and contrary to the stigmatized and imagined version, the point is very much to be present rather than absent. The idea is to create mindfulness and focus.

The act of meditating encourages you to become more conscious of thoughts, feelings and what’s around you. To gravitate towards increased self-awareness.

There are a wealth of positives that come with it, Harvard, for example, notes that mindfulness meditation may ease anxiety and mental stress.

Benefits of Guided Meditation for Addiction

Guided meditation is essentially the same thing as general meditation, the difference is that you’re being guided by a trained professional or teacher. They walk you through the process with the aim of making you present and mindful and the benefits are immense to both the body and mind.

Body Benefits

As mentioned above, meditation can ease anxiety and stress. Additionally, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health adds that it can help with fatigue and sleep patterns. Increasingly, evidence has come to light that meditation can help lower blood pressure and even more profoundly, perhaps even improve immune functions.

In terms of our physical health, those improvements make a world of difference in how our bodies feel and that plays into how our mind copes with things. A healthy body corresponds to a healthy mind.

 

Mind Benefits

The most powerful benefit is the ability to control your thoughts, this leads to an increased ability to focus and ultimately a heightened capacity to find calm in the midst of a storm. The concept of mindfulness comes into play here as well, meditation encourages you to connect with your thoughts & feelings and learn to accept them.

That mindfulness and self-awareness of course also get you on the path towards creating or finding your inner peace.

Find Recovery With Above It All Treatment Network

The mind tends to wander and those wandering can lead to dangerous places, chaotic places but with continued guided meditation a person can learn to control those wanderings and step away from the chaos and into a more serene & controlled headspace. If getting your mind back in order is a priority reach out to us at Above It All Treatment Network, our years of experience and vast network means we can connect you with a rehab specialized in meditation to get you the best outcome possible.