Content
Our relapse prevention program in Orange County is specifically designed to provide education on the different stages of relapse and how to prevent them successfully. We are here to help internal and external triggers you maximize your chances of sustaining lasting sobriety. Engaging in physical activity such as jogging or going for a walk can be beneficial for releasing tension and clearing the mind.
Speak with your addiction specialist about your options for overcoming these emotions. Maintaining relationships with people who are still in the midst of active addiction, or who abuse substances regularly can be triggering and harmful to a person’s recovery. Setting boundaries with these people can help remove the possibility of being triggered or pressured to use drugs or drink again. The person in recovery will also need to set boundaries for themselves, for places they will not go to or events they won’t attend.
How Facing Your Triggers Can Prevent Relapse
It’s important to learn to recognize any negative thoughts that may come up during this process as they can have an even greater impact on your emotions. Practice being mindful of these thoughts and focus on more positive, productive ones instead. It may be helpful to seek help from a treatment facility to help you work through any issues or emotions that may be too overwhelming for you to handle alone.
Agape Treatment Center for substance abuse embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends, that serves regardless of circumstances. We provide individuals all over the country with the opportunity to achieve the gift of lasting sobriety. Research suggests that people who have used drugs in order to mitigate stress in the past are likely to return to this behavior when future stressors arise.
Keep Focused on Proper Nutrition and Hydration
When it comes to making changes to your life to remove triggers, be realistic. There’s no way to prevent fireworks from occurring or certain words from being spoken around you. The opposite of numbing yourself is reconstructing your life in some way to eliminate those triggers.
Our compassionate, friendly staff is available 24-hours a day to take your call and help you begin your recovery journey. Attending an addiction treatment program is a life-changing opportunity. Treatment is often the last resort for individuals and families who…. If someone you love is struggling with substance abuse and addiction, getting them the help they need is essential. The FHE Health team is committed to providing accurate information that adheres to the highest standards of writing.
Get a professional assessment by a therapist or addiction specialist:
A neurobiological overlap between these two conditions would therefore be expected. This therapeutic fact of giving a new meaning to the trigger does not exclude the traditional therapeutic avoiding of the trigger, which is an urgent aim at the beginning of the treatment. Nevertheless, after that initial phase, the inner problem should also be addressed. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ Actually, both are necessary, one to get initial abstinence and the other to help the addict to resolve the frustration underlying drug addiction. Just like the treatment process, preventing relapse is a highly individualized process, but staying in treatment for the recommended amount of time is one of the primary factors that will help you stay sober.
Just the sight or smell of the substance can create deep, hard-to-stop thoughts of using. It’s possible for any external trigger to happen without you being aware of the event that caused it. For example, visiting a family member’s home may make you uncomfortable, but you don’t know why. Years later, you may work with a therapist to uncover the abuse that occurred there.
Fireworks back home may trigger an emotional response because the fireworks sound like gunshots. It often starts with strong emotions that make you neglect your physical and psychological well-being. Then, you might begin to justify why and how you can use again in a more controlled way. While you may be able to avoid going to a bar or attending a party where you might have used drugs in the past, you can’t realistically stay away from some triggers, such as your spouse or your kids, forever. How you respond to trauma can be affected by your age when it happened, mental health state, access to a support network or cultural and religious beliefs.
- Triggers may seem to be everywhere, and you might want to isolate yourself to avoid them.
- Oftentimes, triggers are reminders that put people in a mental and emotional place of distress, pain, anger, frustration, and other strong emotions.
- Therefore, it is very important to have a plan of action when such feelings occur.
- However, this doesn’t always mean that it involves specifically using substances.
This can only be done with peer support and clearly defined relapse prevention strategies. These strategies are formulated in drug rehab and can be practiced safely within a transitional housing situation. In this stage of relapse, you are not typically thinking about using again. Instead, you are setting yourself up for relapse with unhealthy emotional responses and poor-self care. This relapse stage is typically characterized by the acronym HALT, which stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired.
Environmental triggers (people, places, things)
The most common trigger is experiencing the presence of a drug or alcoholic drink. Privacy Policy – © 2023 New Method Wellness
New Method Wellness is not affiliated with, employed by, or in contract with any treatment centers or providers. We do not accept or pay any fees or payments for behavioral health referrals. Humans are diverse and so some people cope with stressful events more readily than others. The broadest category of triggers, external triggers come from the world around us. External triggers can be the most difficult to overcome, but thankfully they’re also usually the easiest to identify and avoid.
If you do relapse because of your triggers, using substances can be deadly. You might go straight to the dose that you’re accustomed to, but your body can no longer handle the same levels of drugs. Many people who want to avoid relapse need to avoid the triggers once they recognize them. As your child progress through our program, we regularly reassess (re-mapping), in order to objectively measure and continuously drive positive improvement.
This would suggest that someone in recovery could be prone to relapse due to an elevated level of stress in life. Sometimes memories that we perceive to be happy are deeply intertwined with addictions or past addictive behaviors, which can lead to reminiscing about one-time use. This reminiscence of times when the addiction was in control is often a sign of the addiction trying to take over the brain again. If this is not immediately stopped, it can lead to current use and erosion of recovery. Patients in the control condition received the same amount of therapist time as those in the experimental group, along with an intensification of their normal therapy. One of the more interesting advances in studies of exposure effects is the finding that they can be dependent on internal contexts as well.
