Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery Movendi International

Identifying and managing these triggers helps individuals recognize and cope with high-risk situations. Understanding the signs and stages of relapse, like emotional, mental, and physical relapse, helps in taking necessary steps to prevent its occurrence. Rule 4 stresses the importance of prioritizing self-care to maintain mental and emotional well-being.

Why Addiction Treatment is an Ongoing Journey

• If you feel anxious or depressed, you may turn to drugs or alcohol to escape.
• While the path to recovery can look radically different depending on the individual, bending the rules to fit your temporary desires is not an option if you genuinely want to recover.
• If you are looking for loopholes in your recovery, chances are that you are tempted to break the rules.
• Helping clients feel comfortable with being uncomfortable can reduce their need to escape into addiction.
• The repair stage of recovery was about catching up, and the growth stage is about moving forward.
• Clinical experience has shown that the following are some of the causes of relapse in the growth stage of recovery.

They often enter treatment saying, “We want our old life back — without the using.” I try to help clients understand that wishing for their old life back is like wishing for relapse. Rather than seeing the need for change as a negative, they are encouraged to see recovery as an opportunity for change. If they make the necessary changes, they can go forward and be happier than they were before.

Integrated Treatment for Co-Occurring Disorders

But more importantly, it usually will lead to a mental relapse of obsessive or uncontrolled thinking about using, which eventually can lead to physical relapse. Clinical experience has shown that occasional thoughts of using need to be normalized in therapy. They do not mean the individual will relapse or that they are doing a poor job of recovery. Once a person has experienced addiction, it is impossible to erase the memory. But with good coping skills, a person can learn to let go of thoughts of using quickly. In bargaining, individuals start to think of scenarios in which it would be acceptable to use.

• At this point in relapse, individuals are at odds with themselves—part of them wants to use, and part of them wants to stay clean.
• Therefore, they feel it is defensible or necessary to escape their negative feelings.
• They occur when the person has a window in which they feel they will not get caught.
• The growth stage is about developing skills that individuals may have never learned and that predisposed them to addiction 1,2.
• There are five pretty simple rules that can make your life in recovery easier.
• But with the right action plan, you can manage these thoughts.

How Pets Aid in the Recovery Process

Your support network can help you revisit and fine-tune your relapse prevention plans and techniques; they may realize you are struggling and need help before you do. It is a form of self-care when you ask for help with big or even small obstacles. Your addiction has given you an opportunity, and if you use this opportunity correctly, you’ll look back on your addiction as one of the best things that ever happened to you. People in recovery often describe themselves as grateful addicts.

The Five Rules of Recovery: How to Stay Focused on What Is Important During Recovery

Recovering from substance use disorder requires more than simply stopping the use of substances. You can only recover by creating a new life that makes it easier to avoid using your substance of choice. If you do not remove the factors that helped get you to the point of SUD, then you are more likely to relapse. Think of it this way—if you do not make changes to your daily lifestyle, you will be faced with the same temptations and triggers that were in place during your worst days struggling with SUD. As tough as it can be to accept for some people, wishing for your old life back is like wishing to relapse. One of the keys to staying in recovery is to develop coping skills that can help you overcome challenging circumstances without turning to drugs or alcohol.

Mental Relapse

Trying to resist or modify the way you approach your recovery is sabotage. Professionals say that trying to bend the other four recovery rules is a warning sign for relapse. If you are looking for addiction recovery treatment in the California area, check out our website for a full list of recovery services. Part of preventing addiction relapse is sticking to the rules.

But they can be stressful issues, and, if tackled too soon, clients may not have the necessary coping skills to handle them, which may lead to relapse. The tasks of this stage can be summarized as improved physical and emotional self-care. Clinical experience has shown that recovering individuals are often in a rush to skip past these tasks and get on with what they think are the real issues of recovery. Clients need to be reminded that lack of self-care is five rules of recovery what got them here and that continued lack of self-care will lead back to relapse. By the time most individuals seek help, they have already tried to quit on their own and they are looking for a better solution. This article offers a practical approach to relapse prevention that works well in both individual and group therapy.