Each year in the United States, 27.2 million people ages 12 or older battle a drug use disorder.[1] Addiction treatment programs offer the chance to break free from the hold substances have on your life, with relapse prevention playing a crucial role. At a drug rehab in Prescott, Arizona, like Silver Sands Recovery, you can receive the care you need.
Relapse prevention strategies vary, with a holistic approach offering the support most people need. What are the holistic approaches to relapse prevention, and what can you expect?
Addiction Recovery: What Is Relapse Prevention?
Substance use disorders are chronic and relapsing conditions characterized by the inability to control substance use despite the negative consequences that use causes. Because the disease is chronic, it’s common for people who are in recovery to relapse or return to substance use after a period of being sober.
The relapse rate for substance use disorders is between 40% and 60%.[2] Although relapsing doesn’t mean treatment has failed, it can be frustrating and even dangerous, so finding ways of preventing the problem is crucial. That’s where relapse prevention strategies come into play.
Relapse prevention is part of all treatment programs, and it strives to help you recognize the gradual process of relapsing, especially its early stages, so that you can make the changes necessary to stay sober.
Several relapse prevention strategies and techniques can help, but for the majority of people, turning to holistic relapse prevention for drug addiction can be the most beneficial.
At A Drug Rehab in Prescott: Understanding Holistic Approaches to Relapse Prevention
Holistic relapse prevention strategies focus on seeing you as more than just a collection of symptoms — holistic relapse prevention treats you as a whole individual. It acknowledges the connections between your emotional, spiritual, psychological, and physical selves.
At Silver Sands, you’ll focus on several holistic healthcare strategies to help you achieve and maintain sobriety. These strategies can make a relapse less likely to happen because they give you the chance to build up some vital psychological tools.
Fostering Mindfulness
Mindfulness is one of the most helpful tools when it comes to relapse prevention for substance use disorders. It teaches you to be in the present. Many times, people going through the recovery process struggle with worries about the future or their past actions, leading to a spike in anxiety and other distressing emotions.
Mindfulness allows you to anchor yourself, making it easier to understand your feelings without judging those emotions.
Substance abuse essentially rewires your brain, leading you to focus on drug-seeking behaviors, but mindfulness can help undo that damage. You can make positive changes in your motivations and overall thought patterns by engaging in acceptance and non-judgmental understanding of what you’re feeling.
Mindfulness can teach you how to recognize intrusive thoughts that could trigger cravings, showing you how to have more control over your reactions to those cravings.
People in drug treatment engage in mindfulness techniques by turning to journaling and even body scanning, which encourages you to go through your whole body looking for pain or tension.
Building Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability to bounce back from the challenges you face. Without improving your resilience, it can be challenging to stay sober, making it an essential relapse prevention strategy.
Increased resilience means you will have the necessary tools to prevent yourself from turning to substance abuse if you experience any upheaval in your life.
Improving Coping Mechanisms
At a rehab center, you will also have a chance to understand why you turned to drugs in the first place. For the majority of people, using substances is a way of managing difficult emotions as well as stress. By turning to holistic relapse prevention strategies, you can learn how to address these uncomfortable emotions in healthier ways.
Drug Rehab in Prescott: Our Holistic Relapse Prevention Strategies
At Silver Sands Recovery, our holistic treatment options include some of the most helpful relapse prevention strategies.
Focusing on Self-Care
We encourage everyone in recovery to prioritize self-care. Addiction takes a significant toll on your mind and body, so you may struggle with difficulty sleeping or nutritional deficiencies and the health issues they can cause. Although it may not appear so, all of these issues your body faces make it more likely that you’ll struggle with staying sober because they spike stress levels.
Self-care also prioritizes the need to set boundaries and engage with your emotions. You want to reduce stress levels as much as possible, especially during your recovery’s early days, and that means stepping away from people and situations that aren’t healthy. Some of the things you should focus on when it comes to self-care include:
- Attending support group meetings
- Setting realistic personal goals
- Engaging in meaningful activities
- Finding healthy outlets for stress
- Ensuring you’re getting enough sleep
It’s important to know that self-care can look different for everyone. A treatment plan that addresses your exact needs makes a difference.
Engaging In Sports and Exercise
Sports and exercise are vital — not only for your recovery but also for achieving optimal health. Staying active can have a significant positive effect on your mental health. Exercise can help reduce stress and anxiety and can even improve your mood.[3]
For people who’ve been struggling with addiction, exercise of any kind can help ease withdrawal symptoms, including cravings, which helps prevent relapses.[4] It is beneficial to participate in activities with other people, like group sports, to ensure isolation doesn’t become a concern.
Turning to Healthy Hobbies
If sports aren’t your thing or you want to combine them with other activities, you can still find the right outlets to help you prevent relapses. Any safe and healthy hobby you prefer, including art, can help address stress, cravings, and other challenges as you recover.
Boredom plays a role in relapses. It can trigger feelings of distress, which can lead you to seek relief from drugs or alcohol. It can be difficult to transition from a treatment program where you have many activities throughout the day to the freedom your regular life offers. By having hobbies you can turn to, you can avoid the added stressor of boredom.
Continuing Your Care at A Drug Rehab in Prescott
Recovering from any substance use disorder is a complex process full of challenges. To give yourself the best chance of long-term sobriety, relapse prevention strategies should include holistic options. For some people, alternative medicine strategies can offer relief. However, for others, turning to sports and art, as well as a variety of self-care options, can offer the most support.
We create individualized treatment plans at Silver Sands Recovery in Prescott, AZ, including relapse prevention strategies to address your needs. With outpatient programs and a team of experts ready to guide you through every step of your recovery, you get the chance you deserve to break free from substance abuse. Start your recovery journey today by contacting Silver Sands Recovery.
Sources:
[1] https://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/press-announcements/20231113/hhs-samhsa-release-2022-nsduh-data
[2] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/treatment-recovery
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4831948/
About the author:
Lisa Waknin is the Founder and Director of Silver Sands Recovery, located in Prescott, Arizona. Lisa started Silver Sands Recovery after immersing herself in the addiction treatment world for several years to figure out what could be done differently to help her daughter and others like her to overcome addiction and stay sober. She believes in a hands-on treatment approach, which includes taking someone out of their environment, providing a 90-day program in a structured environment. During treatment, clients not only recover physically but also learn to live their life again. Lisa is a sought-after expert speaker for recovery support groups, charities, schools, communities, and companies wanting to educate themselves on the explosion of opiate and heroin abuse in our country and the best way to understand, treat, and beat it.