The Route to Recovery: 5 Relapse Prevention Skills

When it comes to drug and alcohol abuse recovery, learning how to prevent relapse is essential in your route to rehabilitation. While each day will present new challenges as you begin to navigate your life without addicting substances, developing coping mechanisms and leaning on tried-and-true relapse prevention methods can help you live a full, enriched life.

Ultimately, recovery is a life-long process that zeros in on personal development and growth to help addicts overcome strong urges, withdrawal symptoms, and dependence. 

During the beginning phases of recovery, triggers can be all-encompassing, with everything from boredom, stress, financial issues, and even specific spaces acting as a pressure point for harmful backslides.

That said, addicts can overcome tempting stimuli by applying relapse prevention skills to their daily routine and committing to living life without drugs. If you’re currently undergoing addiction treatment, read on for five ways to steer clear of harmful relapses. 

Understand the relapse stages

The first and foremost step to avoiding setbacks is understanding the three stages of relapse and how they appear in your day-to-day life before you begin using again. The trio includes emotional, mental, and physical phases that work together to send you into a full-blown spiral if not dealt with adequately. 

• Emotional 

While you may not be gung-ho on using substances during this phase, your day-to-day behaviors may be putting you at risk of relapse without understanding the gravity of the situation. Symptoms of emotional degeneration are isolation, anxiety, suppressed feelings, and loss of appetite. 

• Mental

During this stage, you may find yourself grappling with your inner thoughts as you struggle to remember your reason for quitting and fixate on a romanticized version of past drug-induced events. In addition to bargaining, you may find yourself beginning to plan your relapse, fantasizing about how and when you’ll use.

• Physical

The final phase happens once you’ve given in to temptation and lapsed into drug or alcohol use. Regardless of whether it’s one sip or prolonged use, your road to recovery will start back at the beginning. 

Build a solid self-care routine

Once you’ve identified the stages of relapse, you can begin to build healthy habits to soothe mental and emotional triggers. A helpful tip that recovered addicts suggest is developing a solid self-care routine that emulates the relaxing, feel-good sensations once associated with drug and alcohol use.

By practicing healthy habits, like regular exercise, deep sleep, and nutritional diets, you’ll regain control over your life, allowing you to reduce potential triggers. 

Keep track of your triggers

Before you can sidestep powerful triggers, you need to have a firm grasp on what they are and when they occur. Anything from turbulent relationships, employment troubles, loneliness, withdrawal symptoms can become a trigger, especially if you’re freshly clean from drugs.

While you may not be able to bypass every provocation, keeping tabs on people, places, emotions, or behaviors that set you off can help you avoid temptations in the future and adequately prepare when you’re face-to-face with potential danger zones.  

Implement grounding and meditation practices 

Another tried-and-true technique recovering addicts swear by is participating in grounding exercises to help you return to a calm, peaceful state of mind. Often, people use and abuse substances as an escape from everyday hardships, a tactic that you can replace with mindfulness and meditation.

By breathing deep and settling into your body, you become increasingly self-aware, allowing you to take on temptations as they come instead of fighting them.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

A sure-fire way to find yourself in the middle of a painful relapse is to isolate yourself from caring friends and family. Instead of pushing away supportive loved ones and turning to self-loathing, consider calling upon people who can help you through difficult temptations and emotions.

Additionally, support groups are ideal spaces for struggling addicts to share experiences with people who can fully relate and empathize. 

Wrapping up

While the road to recovery may be long and strenuous, the end-game is worth the challenging climb. Clean, sober living requires a sense of self-awareness which you can achieve by engaging in daily relapse prevention skills.