What To Do After a Relapse?

When it comes to addiction, it refers to a person engaging in addictive behavior after a period of abstinence. Verywell Mind articles are reviewed by board-certified physicians and mental healthcare professionals. Medical Reviewers confirm the content is thorough and accurate, reflecting the latest evidence-based research. Content is reviewed before publication and upon substantial updates.

The most basic definition is when someone clean and sober uses drugs or alcohol again and goes into a spiral that negatively affects their life and derails their recovery. Relapse can mean having one drink or multiple, one hit of a drug, or multiple, whatever classifies a person getting off-track in their recovery.

Strategies to Help You Recover from a Relapse

Unless you remove yourself from that environment, relapses can happen easily. There are a variety of reasons why people end up relapsing after treatment.

• As mentioned, the final stage is the actual physical relapse, where a person returns to the problematic drinking that they seek to abstain from or moderate.
• Such a plan helps minimize the likelihood of lapses in the future.
• What is more, negative feelings can create a negative mindset that erodes resolve and motivation for change and casts the challenge of recovery as overwhelming, inducing hopelessness.
• If you went on a multiple week-long bender, another round of treatment may be in order.

Recovery is a process of growth and establishing a sustainable life. Experts in addiction recovery believe that relapse is a process that occurs somewhat gradually; it can begin weeks or months before picking up a drink or a drug. Moreover, it occurs in identifiable stages, and identifying the stages can help people take action to prevent full-on relapse. Knowing what your triggers are is an essential component of avoiding another future relapse. Did you reconnect with old friends who use your drug of choice?

Make a plan to prevent relapsing again

For some, relapsing while they’re trying to gain a foothold in sobriety is common. While not inevitable, it’s not uncommon for people who are new to the recovery community to struggle with abstaining from drugs or alcohol.

You might just need additional https://ecosoberhouse.com/ skills for long-term sobriety. You can learn from your mistakes and get back on the right path. Helping people understand whether emotional pain or some other unacknowledged problem is the cause of addition is the province of psychotherapy and a primary reason why it is considered so important in recovery.

Attend Meetings & Build a Stronger Support Group

Once you know why it occurred, you can adjust your what to do after a relapse plan to address these triggers. Drug treatment research has shown that the level and quality of support and aftercare directly determines how people who have relapsed will fair after the event. Often, those who do not receive adequate support after a relapse will choose not to continue with treatment. One of the most important ways to prevent and treat a relapse is through social support. Recovery from drug or alcohol addiction can be a difficult journey, one with plenty of ups and downs. While the road to recovery never ends, it does become more familiar as you practice the recovery steps.