Helping a Loved One Avoid Relapse

Maintaining sobriety in the long-term can be just as difficult as the detox-and-rehabilitation process, especially since it’s up to the recovering addict to manage themselves. Those who attending community support groups and maintain a network of support within your home and social life have the best odds of staying sober and happy.

To help your loved one get past their addiction, help them succeed in the following areas.

Avoiding Temptation

Cliche, I know, but this is a crucial element of long-term sobriety: accepting that we do not have all the power; that certain places, people, and things must be avoided, not conquered, in order to beat them.  A common refrain among the casual public is that temptation is unavoidable. On the contrary, addiction is partly a disease of willpower, and avoiding temptation is entirely practical. What isn’t practical is putting yourself in tempting situations necessarily.

Maintaining a Support System

This is what should replace the tempting elements in their previous, drug-using life. It seems simple and obvious, but it’s not, because those who want us to succeed are not always those who are helpful. Sometimes our most passionate friendships and relationships are totally counterproductive. Maybe those friends or family members are drug users themselves, or maybe, for whatever reason, you associate them with painful memories that you just can’t stand. Comfort and support are not mutually exclusive, but they are often separate.

Staying Humble

When life seems to be going well, there is a tendency to fizzle out on our aftercare treatment obligations like AA. That’s a problem, because just one slip can send you back down the rabbit hole of addiction. You want to maintain some sort of support system not as a reminder that your life is messy, but as a fail safe to maintain clean living.

If You Do Relapse, Don’t Abandon Ship

Have you ever spent hours writing an essay or assignment of some kind only to have your computer crash and all progress lost? The thought of starting over is so infuriating, and so daunting, that you probably considered walking away and failing the assignment. The same goes for a drug relapse, except that this is a much more important assignment, and it’s going to be a lot harder to pick up your pencil the next day. If you have to, you will.

To help yourself avoid relapse, we recommend immersing yourself in some of our fantastic aftercare programs