Completing rehab can be an amazing milestone to achieve, but it is not the end of addiction recovery. Maintaining sobriety is the next step in the process. Sobriety from drugs and alcohol requires daily maintenance after leaving a residential treatment center. Making sure that you’re well prepared to adjust back to life after rehab can make relapse a much smaller risk.
Relapse prevention plans can give you the structure and support needed to bridge your life in rehab with your next steps outside of rehab. Along with a relapse prevention plan, there are many other resources that can give you support in staying sober. Even if you’ve already relapsed, there’s no need to give up. A sober living program in Murrieta, California can guide you in reaffirming your sobriety and maintaining it.
Maintaining Sobriety After Rehab
It can be exciting and exhilarating to finish a rehab program and return to loved ones and friends. But along with that enthusiasm can also come quite a bit of anxiety and triggers. Preventing relapse is uppermost in your mind. To remain strong in your resolve and commitment, you can focus on the following strategies:
- Make a plan that you can follow post-treatment. Relapse prevention therapy can help with this. Include your healthcare specialists, family, and friends in this plan, so they can help you carry it forward.
- Give yourself a healthy routine to return to. Think about arranging free time, therapy, work, exercise, and family.
- Decide what sober activities you might already enjoy, that you can put into your routine.
- Make sure that your living space is drug-free, and ask anyone you live with to also support your recovery.
- Consider staying in recovery housing if you need a safe and sober home to stay in post-rehab.
Whatever your plan is for maintaining sobriety, it is important to do your best and remember not to compare yourself to others. Everyone recovers at their own pace and has their own personal triggers. It’s OK to take things one day at a time and do things your way. Those close to you can also give you insights and ideas for your plan.
If relapse does happen, you can prepare yourself ahead of time with a plan. Allow yourself time and forgiveness, so you can remember how successful you already have been. This success is not diminished by relapse, and can be regained. If you have a treatment plan for relapse, you can rest assured you have somewhere to go just in case.
Making a Plan for Post-Rehab Sobriety
When you and your team are putting together a sobriety plan for you, there are a number of considerations you will want to make. Because addiction recovery can be multi-faceted and require intensive treatment, adjusting to a normal routine at home again can pose a challenge.
The following are some important questions to address when making your plan:
- How can you remain connected with reliable and comprehensive support after your treatment is finished?
- What triggers may be waiting back at home for you? How can you plan on avoiding or managing those triggers?
- Are there medications you need to continue taking for your recovery?
- Do you need any housing, employment, or legal services?
- Is there a sober community that you can stay connected with?
When reality doesn’t quite go the way people expect, they may feel like all of their efforts were wasted. Don’t forget what you have already done to care for yourself and seek help, and keep on using those skills. With your loved ones and caring professionals at your side, you can persist, and achieve long-term sobriety.
Leave Addiction Behind Today By Maintaining Sobriety
Only you can decide who you want to be. Those who love and care for you will stick by you, especially when you’re choosing better for yourself. Fighting addiction may prove to be difficult, but with patience and consistent care, you can beat it. If your rehab center does not provide aftercare or an alumni program, you can ask to be referred to these services. There are always more people on your side than you have imagined, so reach out today for support in your recovery.