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Relapse Prevention

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Recovery is a team effort

young man wonders about relapse preventionAddiction recovery is the best thing you can do for yourself, but it’s essential to learn proper recovery strategies. One of the reasons people relapse at an alarming rate is because they didn’t get the help of a treatment facility. When you’re in treatment, you’re going to go through a wide range of therapies that will help your recovery. The primary goal of an addiction treatment program is to help you with relapse prevention so you can live a better life.

Behavioral Therapy for Relapse Prevention

One of the most effective forms of addiction treatment therapy for relapse prevention is behavioral modification. People fall victim to the delusion that they can simply stay clean by their own willpower, but this is setting yourself up for failure. When working with therapists in addiction treatment programs, you begin to learn evidence-based ways of rewiring your brain circuits. The reason people relapse is that they haven’t properly found a way to manage cravings, and that’s exactly what treatment is for.

Therapeutic methods like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can help. The first part of behavioral therapy is to sit down and identify your triggers because this is what begins your cravings. From here, your behavior has been your alcohol or drug use, but therapy helps you replace these behaviors. As you continue to practice the strategies used in these forms of therapy, your brain will automatically find better ways of coping with triggers.

Some of the most common triggers people display include:

  • Mental illness
  • Loneliness
  • Boredom
  • The need for excitement
  • Stress

Family Therapy for Relapse Prevention

Throughout one’s addiction, everyone involved is affected, and this can include friends and family members. If you’re a young adult looking to get clean and stay clean for good, a major part of relapse prevention is family therapy. Addiction counseling can help you and your family begin to work on methods to help you stay clean. This is extremely beneficial because you get an objective point of view on the difficulties your family has.

Now, it’s important to realize that family therapy isn’t about pointing the finger at your family and blaming them. While there are things that your family can do to help you remain sober and being patient, a lot has to do with accountability. In family therapy, your loved ones are going to learn about enabling and codependency to ensure it doesn’t happen. This involves setting boundaries and keeping you accountable, but this is one of the best things to help keep you clean.

Peer Support for Relapse Prevention

Although your family is going to be a crucial part of your recovery, it’s important to receive peer support as well. While your family has the best intentions and wants to help, they won’t fully understand what you’re going through. In treatment, you’re going to meet others who are struggling with addiction, and you’ll no longer feel alone. You’re going to see that by helping to lift each other up when someone is feeling down, it can help you stay clean. Helping others who are in the same position as you is a critical step on your path to recovery.

Zelus Recovery is a young adult addiction treatment program located in beautiful Meridian, Idaho. Our mission is to help young people begin on the road to recovery and regain control of their life. Some of the other therapies we offer to help you stay clean include:

To learn more about Zelus Recovery and how we can help with relapse prevention, give us a call today at 208.518.0797.