Why is Aftercare Important for Substance Abuse Treatment?

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Aftercare ensures a lesser likelihood of relapse when overcoming substance abuse. Addiction can cause permanent damage to your physical and emotional health, relationships and life. Before things become worse, you want to ‘turn the tide.’ The question is, how? Weighed down by the symptoms, deciding to commit to rehabilitation and seeing it through can be too much to do. You may be right, considering the imminent risk called relapse. This is why there is aftercare.

Entering a medically assisted detox and rehab are the initial efforts. Going through the next step, called ‘aftercare,’ won’t be ‘a walk in the park.’ This is because staying clean or sober after rehab is very difficult. Relapse is any rehabilitated addict’s worst nightmare. It can swallow all the gains you earned during rehab. It can deter you from moving on and from gaining power over your life. It can damage you for good.

Relapse is scary, but it should not decide how your life will be lived. You can overcome it, but you cannot do it alone. You need professional help to commit to a successful aftercare.

Meet ‘Relapse’

What is relapse? “An alcohol or drug relapse is the recurrence of any disease that has gone into remission or recovery. As a chronic disease, addiction is subject to periods of relapse,” says Summit Behavioral Health. This means that it is an inevitable aftermath of drug treatment and recovery. If you won’t remove yourself from the same environment – people, places and other potential triggers – you will most likely relapse.

What does this tell you? Do not underestimate ‘relapse.’ Fully recovering from addiction or fully resuming life after addiction can never be a ‘straight line.’ Backsliding is more typical than not relapsing. Removing yourself from the environment that turned you to substance abuse can be very challenging. For instance, how can you remove yourself from the family that’s giving you the stresses and are pushing you to use drugs or alcohol? How can you uproot yourself from the community that has been your home for a long time?

Relapse is very real. In fact, “approximately half of all individuals who try to become sober return to heavy use, with 70 to 90 percent experiencing at least one mild to moderate slip” says Psychology Today. The numbers of those people needing an aftercare don’t lie. Overcoming relapse can mean changing lifestyle and behavior, and those are not easy to do. This is why many rehab patients return to treatment again and again. With limited resource and patience, it won’t be surprising if many have not completely quit their addiction for good.

The Science Behind Relapse

“Addiction is a disease, not a character flaw.” Psychologist Charlotte Boettiger writes in an article published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Relapse may occur, not because you lack the will, determination and/or discipline. It can happen because the ‘connections’ in your brain have been changed by the addictive substance you were exposed to. The longer the exposure, the greater the neural connection damage. The altered brain connections are believed to be the reason why you may yield to the lure of the addictive substance more easily.

Research shows that relapsing is more common than not. Those who became subjects of the studies done related to this topic have been observed to have reduced activities in the brain areas related to evaluating rewards while there is increased activity in the area for judgment and decision-making. These changes are believed to be the reasons why weighing in the various aspects of backsliding can be weak, leaving ex-rehab patients easy targets for relapse.

Thus, saying that ‘relapse is a failed effort’ is not exactly right. Being thought of a ‘a usual part of recovery’ explains why relapse rate is very high. While relapse rate is high, about 10 to 50 percent of recovering patients have successfully made it without backsliding. What may increase one’s chance almost sure possibility is aftercare. What can you do after rehab? Where can you for treatment to be a continuing process after rehab?

What Is a Good Strategy Against Relapse?

If you must win over relapse, first you must be realistic. Accept the fact that the number of people who are succumbing to relapse is incredibly high. Admit that there will always be that risk, even after you have submitted to a detox and rehab treatment in a facility. Acknowledge that you may have a lifelong risk, which is why you need a continuing treatment beyond rehab.

Relapse is very powerful. That can be seen in the massive number of ex-rehab patients that are backsliding. If you do not want to be a part of the statistics, you need a realistic strategy. It is a strategy that can deliver results and that is doable. This is where ‘aftercare’ can come in. Aftercare is a realistic strategy that can help you stay clean or sober for good. It is a treatment program that follows rehab and that is done for you by a trustworthy and experienced counselor or therapist.

If you have relapsed, do not become hysterical or hopeless. Take it with positivity; take it as a sign that you have slackened in your effort. If you have been doing it all on your own, be realistic and strategic; bring in a professional you can trust. You need to take an active role in developing your aftercare program and you must commit to it for the program to work and succeed. If you have not seen a therapist or counselor yet, it is time to contact Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina, NC.

Welcoming Life Anew Without Relapse

At the heart of every successful aftercare program is counseling. Inasmuch as there will be a demand for a lifestyle and behavioral change, therapy methods like talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have a place in the doable, but productive strategy. Since relapse can be triggered by people in the immediate environment, talk therapy and CBT can be integrated with marriage counseling and family therapy. Since addiction is chronic, the secret to preventing relapse for life is through an aftercare that works as a “maintenance therapy.”

Relying on yourself alone, or with the help of people in your home will not work better than having a professional assisting you. The desire of your family to help you could be there. It may be honest and heartfelt, but they could be the reason why you are in this predicament, or they do not really know how they can help you in a technical sense. Counseling with a licensed counselor/therapist independently contracted with Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina, NC, can be your best counter defense when wrestling with relapse, particularly when in the middle of a highly-impacting psychosocial factors.

Going back to treatment time and again can be frustrating. Going through the process may cost you a lot of money. Losing a lot of opportunities can put you in despair. If you find the uphill climb too intimidating, do not give up hope just yet. There is hope with aftercare. Reach out for that phone or computer. Contact CCS – Fuquay-Varina, NC. Look forward to a promising life without the elaborate complications of addiction/relapse. Extricate yourself from lingering, lifelong grips. Take that first step now.

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