Strategies for preventing a relapse means having an action plan and supporting the newly sober individual so as to create success in the long term recovery. These strategies offer professional assistance by setting goals creating a plan and supporting the plan there is need to understand why a person started engaging in substance abuse. We also need to understand if they were able to cope with the traumatic experience if they have relapsed before and what kind of places and people place them at high-risk situations. Below are some examples that can be used as strategies for prevention of relapses
- Planning alternative routes to avoid bars that one may have frequented in their free time.
- Sharing your feelings with a trusted person or attending meetings.
- Role-play with a friend or family member to find ways to avoid drugs. Practicing this will make it feel natural.
- Working with a trained therapist or counselor is helpful in recovery from drugs and alcohol. They help you uncover personal triggers recognize warning signs and plan an action for each.
One such action plan would be having regular physical activity like yoga gym work outs running amongst others so as to promote a healthy brain. Other healthy habits to adopt include having a better diet, meditation amongst others.
So as to treat addiction or alcoholism requires great support network so as to have better long-term success with no relapses. People need to have more than one form of support for successful outcomes. Have a list of trusted people one can call when you are experiencing cravings. Understand that it is okay if they just listen when you need to talk. It is also a good idea to get out there a do something different like going for a run grabbing a cup of coffee or attending a movie with a trusted friend. Understand too that the process of treatment of addition or alcoholism and recovering from alcohol shouldn’t be a lonely one. Try to involve people that you trust. Remind yourself that life will get stressful at times but no matter how bad life may seem in the moment the benefits of staying sober greatly outweigh any short-term relief you may get from using again. Over time the cravings and risk of having a relapse will be less. Over time humans have understood the possibility of treating addiction as a disorder.
Treatment enables patients counteract addictions that have adverse effects on their brain and behavior as well as have a grip of their lives other activities thereof. Addiction mostly means that for some people relapse or going back to the use of drugs after attempting to stop can be part of the process. Better and improved treatments have been able to help prevent relapses, addiction or alcoholism means having a behavioral change in what has been deep within and having a relapse doesn’t necessarily indicate that treatment has failed. Assuming that a person who is recovering from an addiction suffers from a relapse, this simply shows that he or she needs to speak with their doctor so as to continue with treatment, have it modified or try another form or mode of treatment altogether. There are various types of medications which may be useful at different levels of treatment to aid the patient cease from abusing drugs stick to the treatment and avoid relapsing. Patients can experience various physical as well as emotional symptoms including lack of sleep and been restless, been anxious, depression and other health conditions. There are some medications and methods that can help reduce these symptoms which help to try and stop the use of drugs.
Other forms of treatment assist the brain in adapting slowly to the lack of the drug in the body’s system. Thus these forms of treatments slowly help to avoid drug dependence and help to calm the body system. Patients are then able to set their minds on better things such as counseling and other drug treatment methods. In trying to prevent a relapse most science related works have made us learn that stress triggers linked to drug usage such as places, people as well as things and moods mostly cause relapses in most people. Over time most science work has been developed to help people stay in the recovery phase. It is recommended that we show acts of benevolence to those recovering to prevent them from relapsing.
