Continuing Treatment of Drug Addicts After Rehab
Recovery doesn’t begin and end with rehab.
Inpatient treatment is an extremely rewarding and emotional experience, but sometimes recovering addicts can feel lost once they complete their inpatient programs. What are you supposed to do after rehab? What kind of programs are available for people who have already finished inpatient treatments? Believe it or not, there are a lot of options for the treatment of drug addicts after rehab. Some of them involve continued programs with rehab centers, while others are simply activities you can incorporate into your newly sober life.
Outpatient treatment of drug addicts
While inpatient treatment is highly effect, many rehab programs work on a step-like system. Incoming patients will start with detox, move onto an inpatient program, and eventually continue onto outpatient programs that slowly but surely become less strict and all-encompassing. If, for whatever reason, the inpatient treatment center you chose does not offer outpatient programs, consider finding one that does!
Find a support group for recovering addicts
Once you finish treatment, it can be difficult to go back home to the same environment that you used to abuse drugs and alcohol with. This is partly because of the triggering nature of your old environment, but another contributing factor is the sudden loss of community. Throughout inpatient treatment of drug addicts, patients participate in group therapies with a variety of different focuses. This can be extremely cathartic for recovering addicts, as substance abuser generally feel isolated throughout their addictions. Treatment centers offer recovering addicts the chance to talk with people who have gone through similar situations. When you return to your normal day-to-day life, the sudden loss of like-minded individuals can be hard to adjust to. Support groups, like 12-step meetings, can offer recovering addicts an opportunity to regain that sense of community.
It’s not all about comfort either, studies have shown that recovering addicts that attend outpatient meetings alongside other support groups after inpatient programs have a much higher chance at long-term sobriety.
Focus on your mental health
It may seem like a played-out stereotype, but in reality, mental health plays a large role in addiction. Whether your mental health led you to seek out substances or the substance abuse itself led to problems with mental health, seeking psychological treatment of drug addicts after rehab can be extremely beneficial. You can setup meetings with a therapist, meet with a psychologist, or even engage in local self-help or mindfulness groups. Whatever you decide to do, it’s important that you stay focused on maintaining a healthy mental and emotional state.
Give back to the community
Throughout inpatient treatment, recovering addicts will meet and learn from other addicts with more sobriety time under their belt. Learning from people who have been through the struggles of addiction and recovery can be one of the most effective ways to teach addicts how to maintain their sobriety. In fact, 12-step programs commonly have speaker meetings to encourage their newer members. Speaker meetings are 12-step meetings that revolve around one person telling their recovery story to inspire others. Once you have enough sobriety time, you can volunteer to speak at 12-step meetings as well.
You don’t need to participate in 12-step meetings to give back to your community though. You can work with animal shelters, big brother or big sister programs, volunteer with elder care facilities, help with community garden projects, or even serve in church related programs! Whatever you decide to do, service can do wonders for your morale, emotional and mental health. It can also help you feel like a part of your community in a more positive and inclusive way.
Sources:
