Author: contributor

The addiction recovery process can be challenging and arduous, but it doesn’t stop there. When someone recovers from addiction and is sober, rebuilding their life is not as easy as it seems.

Without proper guidance, someone who recovers from addiction can relapse, especially when they cannot withstand the withdrawal cravings and symptoms. Therefore, it is important to be intentional about what you do while you try to adjust to your normal life.

Here are some steps to take when you recover from addiction.

Take things slowly

One of the mistakes that some people make when rebuilding their lives after addiction is to jump right back into their activities. They fail to realize that the life after addiction is very much different from what they were used to.

Even though you feel energetic and ready to take on the world, it is important to begin with a moderate approach. When it comes to getting the best out of your addiction recovery, be prepared to take things slowly.

Make new sober friends

When you leave addiction treatment or rehab, it is important to sever all ties with sources that fuel addiction, including your old friends. Hanging out with these set of people can cause a setback to your addiction recovery.

Be intentional about making friends with sober people so that their good and healthy habits can rub off on you. They will also look out for you, ensuring that you don’t go back to your addiction habits.

Find new hobbies

When someone is addicted, their hobbies are mostly centered on their addiction. Hence, when they engage in those activities, they are likely to engage in their addiction. After addiction recovery, you can get back on track by finding new hobbies to keep you engaged and fulfilled.

Set smaller and more realistic goals

Work towards breaking your goals into smaller ones, so that they can be easy to achieve. Quit setting far-fetched goals that might be difficult to meet. Your goals should be SMART- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Anyone who is suffering from addiction, and wants to be sober needs to go in for addiction treatment at a reputable rehab. This will be quintessential in making them sober individuals.

However, addiction treatment doesn’t end when the recovering individual is certified to be sober. This is the part where many people miss it.

When you are sober and addiction free, there is an important phase you need to begin. This phase is called the aftercare treatment. The aftercare treatment can be regarded as an entirely new phase that helps to reintegrate you into society.

While you were away for treatment, the triggers and cravings that made you addicted didn’t vanish. Therefore, when you are back from treatment, they might still be standing in your way.

Hence, it is up to you to fight them off so that you don’t get addicted a second time. With aftercare treatment, you will learn the coping methods and skills to prevent relapse and falling into addictive behaviors.

One of the ways to know if your addiction treatment was truly successful is by seeing how you respond when you are in a new environment laced with all manner of cravings.

An aftercare treatment helps you to get back into your daily life under little or no pressure. It also monitors your lifestyle, ensuring that you integrate healthy habits into your daily life.

One of the features of an aftercare treatment is you get to check in with your counselor or therapist regularly. This would help them keep tabs on what is going on in your life.

Additionally, you will have to attend individual and group therapy sessions to get motivated by what other people are going through.

Aftercare treatment is the best place to get a support system that will be there for you, thereby eliminating the chances of ever getting addicted.

When people recover from drug addiction, or they complete their addiction treatment, they feel relaxed that the addiction phase is finally over.

However, it is important to mention that even though the therapist has deemed an addiction treatment phase successful, there are still some measures to put in place.

This means that there is a tendency for a recovering individual to relapse even though their drug addiction treatment was successful.

Therefore, to prevent relapse, it is vital to note the signs so that proactive steps can be taken. Here are some of the signs of relapse after drug addiction treatment

Running into financial problems

One way to know that an individual has relapsed is when they experience financial difficulty which is typical of addicts. You will find them requesting loans or stealing money.

This is done in a bid to fund their addiction. When an individual relapse, they will spend all their savings and earnings because of their addicted lifestyle.

Privacy and Secrecy

Another way to know when relapse is in play is when the individual starts to lead a private lifestyle. Before their treatment, you must have noticed that they prefer to keep to themselves because they don’t want anyone interfering in their lives.

This is the same thing that happens when they relapse. Hence, when they keep up this act, you can be sure that they are back to their addiction.

Physical appearance

You can also detect when an individual has returned to their addiction when it begins to take a toll on their physical appearance. They might become overweight or underweight, their appearance will suggest that they are living unhealthily.

It might be difficult to avoid cravings and triggers completely because they are responsible for relapse. However, individuals need to learn how to cope with these triggers when they surface. This would be instrumental in helping them prevent relapse.

For some people, they feel that after receiving proper treatment for drug addiction, they are good to go. This is largely false because, if they are not careful, there is a tendency for them to relapse.

There is a good chance for an individual to relapse if he or she does not undergo the quintessential follow-up program.

The chances are larger when the individual was treated for substance addiction.

People who recover from drug and alcohol addiction, are likely to go back to their past ways if care is not taken. This is why it is important for every rehab treatment center to have plans for a follow-up system.

One of the reasons why people go back to their addiction soon after they recover is, inability to adapt to life’s situation.

The fact is, the world is constantly changing, so going in for addiction treatment and coming out after a while, would not bring you to the present state of life.

It is up to you to take your time in catching up. For some people who are recovering, they feel it is easy to match up with whatever is going on around them, and they get affected adversely.

A good rehab that has a top-notch follow-up system will ensure that people who have recovered, would take their time to adapt to the present life.

A key player of the follow-up phase is the counselor. The counselor is a professional who helps the addicted individual find his or her ground when they enter for addiction treatment. And when they begin therapy fully, the counselor is also there to offer all possible forms of support.

There are various forms of challenges that a recovering individual would face, and this is why he or she needs a well-structured follow-up system.

The follow-up or after-care system is equally as important as the addiction treatment program itself, so the both of them need to be taken seriously.

Employees who are addicted in the workplace pose a great threat to the overall success of the organization. This is why, it is imperative for Employers to look out for the welfare of their employees, if they want their organization to move forward.

With addiction in the picture, the productivity of the organization is at stake. At that moment, the addicted individual cares less about the progress of the organization. What the individual is after, is collecting the monthly payment.

It even gets worse when the employees look forward to receiving this payment, so that they can use it to fuel their addiction. For those who are addicted to drug and alcohol, they will use their money to buy those substances in order to sustain their addiction.

Asides drugs and alcohol, employees also get addicted to behavioral forms of addiction like internet addiction, food addiction, sex addiction, gaming addiction and a host of others.

When these addictions are in play, work becomes less exciting to them, and this prevents them from focusing properly.

In order to improve productivity among employees, it is important to deal with addiction.

• 

Addiction is a brain disease that has the capacity to affect any organization, no matter how proficient they may be. It is even possible for an employee who is addicted to make other employees addicted.

Addiction is a war that employers need to combat, and this is why the performance of each individual must be properly studied in order to fully defeat addiction.

Employees who are addicted are advised to seek addiction treatment from a reputable addiction treatment center.

For those who are addicted to substances, they would need to undergo detoxification so that the toxic substances can be flushed out from their system.

It is even feasible for an addiction program to be incorporated into the workplace to help employees who are suffering from any form of addiction. Doing this would help the workplace more productive and healthy.

Opting for a good addiction treatment centre for yourself, is one of the best decisions which you can make in your lifetime, and what makes it better, is going for the one which offers optimum aftercare or follow-up care. Basically, aftercare is the aspect of the addiction recovery process, which is quintessential in ensuring that the addicted individual does not relapse.

A good number of individuals usually start their substance addiction treatment journey with a phase of detox which is usually professionally supervised. Now, depending on the type of substance which the individual is addicted to, and whatever forms of recommendation which the treatment professional could give, the first line of action could need detox which is medically-aided.

Irrespective of the fact if medications are needed or not, all the detox protocols are usually carried out, in order to give room for safe and relaxed substance clearance, and also their toxic hold from the systems of these individuals, during the early phase of their recovery from substance addiction.

Now, it is essential that there is a quality addiction aftercare in place for anyone who just finished whatever form of addiction recovery program. One of the reasons for this is, most times when these substances are used for a long time, it has the capacity to modify the proper functioning of the brain.

Most times, these changes which happen to the brain, do not usually reverse. As a matter of fact, they last for a long time, eve after the individual has stopped using the substance. Also, see drug addiction rehabilitation centers for more information. You can also visit Government rehabilitation sites for additional information.

Addiction has a positive impact which is followed by many psychological changes, which affects feelings, behaviours and thoughts which would last, even after processes such as detoxification. Physiological changes after addiction are also closely related to this, as they have an impact which implies that there is a need for continuing treatment.

Hence, it is important that you set your sights on finding a quality aftercare which would ensure that, tremendous progress in made in your recovery process. Using an effective addiction aftercare treatment would most likely attend to integral aspects of your life such as your relationships, housing, finances, children, education, medical status, mental health and amongst others.