Life after rehab can influence a mixture of emotions. You’ll be happy, excited and eager to return home and experience sober living. You’ll leave rehab with a positive outlook, ready to progress your recovery journey. There is also a likelihood that you’ll be nervous, worried and even anxious around what life after rehab holds for you. After all, you’ve returned home where old drug and alcohol influences reside.
The truth is, life after rehab is exactly what you make of it. Your behaviour and choices post-rehab will have a direct impact on the type of experience you have with drugs and alcohol moving forward. While this can feel like a daunting, weighty responsibility, there are some steps you can take to make life after rehab, worthwhile, maintaining the sober status.
It is also important to remember that vulnerabilities and feeling those negative emotions are all very common when returning to reality. Rehab is escapism which can help you fully recover. Transitions back home will be the true test, which of course means a lot to you.
You’ve completed the hard step of rehab, of detoxification, of realignment, where professional guidance has been provided to return home. If you place this level of trust and confidence in your personal ability to recover independently while utilising those helpful steps, life after rehab can be exactly what you hope it to be.
Yet, to reach that point, completing a comprehensive, suitable rehab programme will be encouraged, exactly what we can support with at Rehab Clinics Group. Set on achieving recovery via rehab, soon maintained through a positive and free life after rehab.
Potential recovery results through rehab
Rehab is a highly recommended, potentially life-changing process which acts as a lifeline for most clients. It provides feasible processes and forms of addiction treatment to tackle the physical and psychological routes of addiction, while also adapting ingrained behaviours.
Addiction is a complex brain illness to treat and overcome. Yet, through a suitable rehab clinic, through a comprehensive programme, and through long-term commitment, recovery can be reached, followed by maintenance, post-rehab.
Recovery results for all clients will differ. From susceptibility to addiction treatment, and the severity of an addiction, to the desire to recover, many personal factors can dictate the success of rehab. Yet, in general, foundational recovery is a true potential through rehab, by challenging causations and triggers on their head, soon followed by realignment.
Currently, you may feel miles away from the chance to maintain sobriety. Yet, through rehab, you will have a structured, paved out programme to follow, helping to influence strong recovery skills and motives.
The progress you make through rehab can influence life after rehab, your ability to maintain long-term recovery, and your capability to avoid relapse risks. Yet, the greatest dictator of life after rehab is the steps you take and the decision you make.
What to expect from life after rehab?
Expectations of life after rehab will differ for every client. We must note how although you’ll be excited, although this is a positive step, everything will not be perfect. Like life, life after rehab is very similar. There will be obstacles ahead for you, in relation to your previous addiction. For example, broken relationships, judgments, negative associations, or even financial/legal concerns. Returning home after rehab is the true test, to test whether you can heal from addiction.
By utilising new coping strategies and by relying on the results from the completion of addiction treatment, you will be positioned strongly to combat this test. Yet, you must also remain realistic and take each day as it comes, by making positive decisions, lifestyle choices and associations.
It’s also vital to understand that relapse is likely. Whether that’s a small emotional relapse, or a physical relapse, experiencing some form of connection to drugs and alcohol, through exposure, is common. Yet, relapse will not dictate your future, but how you deal with that relapse will.
By maintaining a positive lifestyle, by completing ongoing treatment, by being honest with yourself and others, and by being realistic, you can move towards long-term recovery. Those are the best expectations to set, while knowing that a difficult road is ahead, yet a worthwhile one at that through a sober life after rehab.
Lifestyle changes after rehab
In order to benefit from rehab and the opportunity to maintain sobriety, making lifestyle changes on your return home are recommended. Below are a few changes you can make from the offset to meet your expectations of life after rehab.
- Maintaining a positive lifestyle is a must. Ensure you get enough sleep, that you exercise, that you do things to stimulate positive mental health. Follow a healthy nutritional guide, participating in self-care and doing whatever it takes to be healthy and happy is important.
- Entertaining valuable relationships is a must. Associating yourself with drug and alcohol exposure can be detrimental. Avoid toxic or influential relationships.
- Take on a new hobby or start to learn a new skill to distract you from your recovery.
- Socialising regularly will also help to fill your new lifestyle with support. Yet, ensure that it is the right type of socialisation.
- Placing emphasis on support groups and other treatments and merging them into your lifestyle will make life after rehab easier.
- Throw yourself into quality time with those who support you. Remaining honest and asking for support from friends and family is a good way to normalise your recovery.
There are many coping mechanisms you can utilise post-rehab. Understandably, they will be personal to you. Yet, whatever you can do to avoid drug and alcohol exposure and help you rebuild quality of life will be recommended here at Rehab Clinics Group. After all, life after rehab is all about living, about being the person you want to be without drugs and alcohol.
Continuing recovery after rehab through treatment
As returning to reality after rehab can cause anxieties, embracing professional support and treatment, on a consistent basis is recommended. Through a range of treatment options, you can continue your recovery through safe environments, offering sustainable methods to remain sober.
- A 12-step programme
Here you can progress through a 12-step programme which helps to motivate ongoing recovery and forgiveness. This can help you overcome the psychological challenges linked to life after rehab.
- AA meetings
It is vital to feel supported through your recovery journey. AA meetings can provide this level of support for you by opening you up to a network of likeminded people.
- Counselling and therapy
Psychological recovery is the hardest part of life after rehab. You must heal mentally by overcoming associations with drugs and alcohol. Ongoing counselling and therapy can help to motivate this, especially when tackling underlying causations of addiction.
- Drug or alcohol detox
Some clients will unfortunately experience a relapse. In some cases, where drug or alcohol consumption has continued, detoxification will be required. As ever, visiting a drug and alcohol rehab centre will be recommended.
By embracing professional guidance, you will acquire accountability and motivation to maintain sobriety. While this may feel a way off currently, it is possible by tackling life after rehab, proactively.
Yet, to reach this point, rehabilitation must be achieved. Through our centres here at Rehab Clinics Group, we can support you, no matter your current expectations of life after rehab. Reach out today to make sobriety your reality in the long-term.