When you relapse, it feels devastating. You feel like a failure, like you’ve let everybody down. Your parents. Your children. Your friends. Family. Coworkers. AA members. You’ve always known you’re a failure and now you’ve proved it to everyone.
STOP. That’s your addiction talking. Trying to woe you back into its grasp.
You relapsed. So what? You’re not the first person and you won’t be the last. Just because you messed up, whether it was just today or if you’ve been on a bender for the last seven days, it doesn’t mean you give up.
But what are you supposed to do now that you’ve relapsed?
Here’s what.
Featured Rehab Center
Stop Using
No matter how big your relapse, stop now before it gets any worse. After all, you’ve really only got two options: keep using or quit. Choose the right one. If your relapse was small, do what you need to do to stop. Go out of town. Lock yourself in a room. Call three of your best friends and ask them to stay with you for a day or two.
Is Treatment Necessary?
If your relapse was longer, think about if you need to go to detox or drug and alcohol treatment. If you’re unsure, seek out a drug and alcohol evaluation. This should let you know if you qualify for inpatient treatment, IOP, or if outpatient would be more appropriate. If you think you may need to go to a rehab center, call 800-481-6320Who Answers? for help.
Go to a Meeting
Attending a meeting after your relapse will help remind you of why you quit using.
Once you’ve stopped using, get to a meeting. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your normal meeting or if you know anyone there, just go. Surrounding yourself with people embracing recovery helps you from negative thinking and reminds you of what sobriety means in your life.
Call Your Sponsor
Remember that person who stood by your side and helped you walk the steps? Remember how he made you call him every day for the first month you were in the Rooms? Sponsors sponsor because they care and they want to help. Utilize them. Admittedly your sponsor would prefer if you called before you relapsed, but it’s not a perfect world and sponsors understand that. They also understand what it’s like to be addicted and they won’t judge you. As a matter of fact, chances are they’ll respect your accountability.
Ask for Support
Although you might not want to tell your loved ones about your relapse, you need to be open and honest in your recovery. Sit down and tell them what happened, and explain what your plan is to get back on track. Ask for their support and share your relapse triggers and warning signs so they can help you with relapse prevention.
Make It a Learning Experience
Instead of focusing on all the negatives regarding your relapse, make it a learning experience. Relapse doesn’t just happen, and very rarely does it happen without warning. Examine what lead up to the relapse and what you could have done different. Take that knowledge and implement it into a new relapse prevention plan.
Have You Relapsed?
Is addiction controlling your life? Have you recently relapsed and need to get into treatment? Call 800-481-6320Who Answers? today and become stronger than ever.
One of the most difficult things to do is watch a loved one kill themselves with drugs or alcohol. You beg and plead with them, asking them to seek treatment but they always go back to their addiction. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, treatment does not have to be voluntary to work…..
Heroin addiction comes with many risks including damage to the body and associated mental illness as a result of long term addiction to heroin. Heroin is one of the most dangerous and destructive drugs on the street today. Even casually using heroin just one time can result in a heroin addiction that destroys one’s life…..
Seeking treatment for drug or alcohol addiction at a professional rehab facility is sometimes the only chance that some people have of getting their life back on the right track. While there are hundreds of reputable rehab centers located throughout the United States, finding and comparing all the different options is never an issue. The….
One of the hardest parts of drug addiction is admitting that you have an addiction that you need help with. Knowing this is very debilitating and sometimes embarrassing. One of the things that is even more humiliating is having someone go through your belongings, telling you what you can and cannot have. There is however,….
It seems every addict has suffered from denial at one point or another. Drug addiction, an inability to admit to it and the fact that it’s difficult to believe all make denying one’s own drug addiction a much easier thing to do than to cope with, confront and admit to the problem. You’ve heard it,….
It can be a rather delicate area when it comes to whether or not a person should consider dating during rehab. While there are several schools of thought on the subject, it is important to remember that your time in rehab, first and foremost, should be spent focused on your recovery. If you are looking….
Are you struggling with life, trying to keep everything from spiraling out of control but not matter how hard you try you just keep using drugs? You feel helpless and ashamed, you’ve isolated yourself from friends and family, you miss work or school regularly because you don’t “feel” well but no matter what you do,….
It is never too late to seek help for addiction but if you wait too long the chances of irreparable damage being cause as a result of your addiction increase significantly. If you are not sure whether you need drug rehab or not consider this – if you have tried to stop using on your own and….
In many cases, it is necessary for a person to attend inpatient drug rehab. Perhaps the drug the individual was abusing has caused them severe physical or psychological issues or they are in need of 24-hour surveillance and care. For whatever reason, inpatient care can be necessary, but it may also cause a patient to….
Of all the known addictive substances, alcohol remains the most accepted in terms of the place it holds within American society’s customs and norms. For many struggling with alcohol abuse problems, what started out as a casual, commonplace indulgence morphed into an out-of-control behavior that slowly took over their lives. The type of help available….
Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Additional calls will also be forwarded and returned by a quality treatment center within the USA.
Calls to any general helpline (non-facility specific 1-8XX numbers) for your visit will be answered by Boca Recovery Center, Daylight Recovery Center or another licensed drug and alcohol rehab facility, a paid advertiser on RehabCenters.com.
