It’s perfectly understandable that a major life event would have you considering using again. After all, that was your primary way of coping for a long time. Before you begin to panic, though, give yourself credit for being honest. Feeling that urge and acting on it are two very different things, and one doesn’t have to lead to the other. In fact, recognizing that urge and knowing where it comes from shows just how far you’ve already come.

Relapsing Won’t Help Anything

Now use that newfound self-awareness to take the scenario a step further. While you may have an immediate desire to numb your feelings with drugs, you also know that those unhealthy habits never solved any problems for you, they just created new ones. And those feelings you were trying so hard to suppress? They remained just below the surface, refusing to go away because you hadn’t ever really dealt with them. Relapsing won’t help anything, it will just cause more trauma that you’ll eventually have to confront.

Dealing with heartache or loss stone-cold sober is difficult, but it’s the right thing to do. It allows you to grieve or deal with problems in a way that lets you hold your head up in the long run. By processing what’s going on and getting through it instead of drowning your feelings in drug and alcohol addiction, you have the opportunity to get past the problem and move on in a positive way that substance use will never provide you.

We know you’ve heard it before, but recovery is a lifelong process. You’re never declared “cured” from addiction, but with ongoing support and the tools you learned in treatment, you can get through life’s disappointments clean and sober, and come out a better, more whole person on the other side.

Relapse Prevention Help

If you or someone you love is battling a relapse, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Once you’ve completed treatment, your journey of recovery is only beginning. In the protected environment of drug and alcohol rehab, it’s easy to avoid triggers and to avoid the people who would threaten your sobriety. Once you’re back in your everyday life, it will take a more proactive plan to avoid friends and acquaintances who are still using.

Avoiding Places & People To Avoid Relapse

It’s important to surround yourself with family and friends who support you and can help you if they see you starting to slip. At the same time, it’s just as important to avoid friends and acquaintances that don’t support your long-term recovery. Anyone who is not completely in favor of your journey away from drugs is someone who puts you in at risk of returning to drugs.

In addition to avoiding people who put you in the path of temptation, you want to avoid places that are dangerous to your sobriety as well. Don’t go to locations where you think you might be tempted to use. Also, avoid circumstances that may take you back emotionally to a place when you were addicted. When it’s not possible to completely avoid a situation, plan ahead. Let a supportive friend or mentor know what you are facing and stay connected. If you need to take yourself out of a situation, get out immediately and touch base with someone safe who is championing your sobriety.

Everyone Falls

Even with the best planning, you may still falter. If you do make a mistake, it’s important to forgive yourself and move on. If you beat yourself up for one slip, it will become easy to use that as an excuse to return to a life of addiction. As you continue on your journey of recovery, it will become easier to maneuver your way through the barriers to long-term sobriety and feel more confident.

Addiction Treatment

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction or co-occurring disorder, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Everyone who gets caught up in addiction is a whole person with talents and gifts and unique traits. Despite your recovery status, you don’t need to be defined by your addiction. You are so much more! In addition, letting your addiction define you is unnecessary and can be a barrier to your long-term recovery.

Changing Your Future

You can’t control how others perceive you, but you can control how you view yourself. You have the choice each day to be someone who can’t get beyond the past or someone who is focusing on the future – drug free. Your attitude makes a big difference in how you live out your life of recovery.

Doing this requires support from others who’ve been there. You didn’t make it through treatment alone, and that support is still needed as you make your way though your life of recovery. Support groups can also offer advice on new healthy hobbies or activities to fill the space left by your addiction. Exercise, music, classes or volunteering can all offer fulfillment and take your mind off the tremendous changes you’ve been through and any anxiety about what the future will hold.

Boredom can be dangerous to recovery, but you also want to make sure you don’t try to do too much too soon. Rely on your support group or aftercare experts to help you determine what you’re ready to take on. Making smart decisions and taking appropriate steps at the right time will lead to lasting recovery.

Substance Abuse Treatment

If you or someone you love is battling an addiction or co-occurring disorder, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Addiction is a complex disease, and the riddle of relapse is equally difficult to unravel. Why does someone who seems to be successfully working a recovery program and has all the necessary head knowledge about how to avoid falling into old habits end up using again?

Obviously, if it was just a matter of looking at the facts and weighing the dangers, no one would ever use in the first place. But substance abuse is much more complex than that. Relapse doesn’t start once the substance is first used again. It starts long before that and is marked by a series of behaviors. Addiction specialists Terrence Gorski and Merlene Miller collaborated on the development of eleven phases of relapse:

• Internal Change
• Denial
• Avoidance and Defensiveness
• Crisis Building
• Immobilization
• Confusion and Overreaction
• Depression
• Behavioral Loss of Control
• Recognition of Loss of Control
• Option Reduction
• Alcohol and Drug Use

Relapse from Stressors

When stressors add up and the addicted individual has trouble coping, the urge can be strong to turn to an artificial substance to numb those feelings or create the good feelings they’re not producing naturally. Unmanaged stress on a continual basis causes a great deal of emotional and physical suffering for the chemically dependent individual, but learning how to deal with life stressors in a healthy way can greatly decrease the risk of relapse. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be particularly helpful with this.

Relapse from Cravings

Another factor is the craving a body may still feel for a substance, even after someone has stopped using. Substance abuse produces a physiological change in the brain and body, and it can take months or even years before cravings disappear completely. The good news is, each day spent sober gets the individual one step closer.

Recovery is a lifelong process and one that requires ongoing attention. You’ve never “arrived” at sobriety, and just when you think you are never in danger of using again, that can be the most dangerous time of all.

Addiction Treatment

If you or someone you love is facing a relapse, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

The holidays, family functions, job stress, family stress, events that take you back in the path of locations where you used to obtain or do drugs can all be dangerous. They can make someone in recovery uncomfortable and trigger thoughts of returning to unhealthy activities as a way to silence those unwanted emotions.

We’ve all wished at one time or another that we could just turn off our feelings. But going through life emotionally numb isn’t really an option. For recovering addicts, there are certain times that are more emotion-filled and therefore make them more in danger of relapsing. Fortunately, it is possible to become aware of triggers and learn how to diffuse them.

How to Avoid Relapse Triggers

First, it’s important to identify the feelings those stressors bring up. Loneliness, fear, anxiety or unreasonable expectations can turn events that should be happy and fun into dangerous for someone in recovery.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the barrage of unpleasant feelings, but it’s important to take them one by one and deal with them from a practical instead of an emotional viewpoint. Do whatever you need to do to remind yourself that your sobriety is the most important thing at all times. Stick inspirational messages on your mirror, keep a sober friend’s number handy in your wallet or in your phone’s speed dial, remind yourself about the negative consequences that resulted from your substance abuse in the past.

When you can’t avoid triggers (stress-filled family get togethers, travel far from your support system, etc.) make sure you have healthy distractions on hand and a back-up plan. And don’t forget to schedule time for reflection after the fact. Look at what worked and what might be better the next time so each time you face triggers you’ll be more prepared than the last. Following these tips can help prevent relapse before it begins.

Relapse Help at La Paloma Treatment Center

If you or someone you love might be susceptible to relapse, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

It may be weeks before toxicology reports confirm just what killed celebrity disc jockey DJ AM (aka Adam Goldstein). He was discovered dead in his Manhattan apartment on Aug. 28, 2009 after missing a plane to Las Vegas, where he had a standing Friday night gig to spin records at The Palms’ Rain nightclub.

Multiple news outlets reported that after the NYPD broke down the door to Goldstein’s SoHo area apartment, they found him dead, with drug paraphernalia, crack cocaine and prescription drugs nearby. Initial reports suggest his tragic death was an accidental overdose.

Goldstein’s MTV Show on Intervention

Prior to his death, Goldstein, 36, claimed he had been clean for more than 11 years after battling a crack cocaine addiction. He was even working on a reality show with MTV that helped others get off drugs. The future of the unaired project, Gone Too Far, is undecided. All eight of the show’s planned episodes had already been filmed and the show was scheduled to premiere Oct. 5. Following Goldstein’s death, message boards were abuzz with speculation that the show had contributed to his relapse, while others pointed out that DJ AM had helped others toward recovery long before the show came along. His own words offer insight as well: “There’s no better way to remember what it was like when I was at my bottom than to see someone at their bottom,” Goldstein told the Associated Press while doing publicity for the show.

Goldstein is just the latest in a long line of recent celebrity deaths attributed to drug use, following Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith. This tragedy drives home once more just how hard ongoing recovery is and that it is, indeed, a lifelong process.

If you or someone you know needs help with a substance abuse problem, contact La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have.

“Having a coexisting psychiatric illness or family history of a substance use disorder or having used a major opioid are key factors that can increase the likelihood of a substance use disorder relapse among healthcare professionals,” according to a study in the March 2008 issue of JAMA.

The prevalence of chemical dependency (excluding nicotine) among physicians has been estimated to be 10 percent to 15 percent. While that number is similar to chemical dependency rates in the general population, it can be easier for doctors to hide their addiction because of their accessibility to legal drugs. Of those medical professionals who do seek treatment for their addiction and complete a program, the study showed that recovery is best achieved through continuing group therapy and regular attendance at mutual help groups.

Possibility of Releapse

In the study of 292 health care professionals enrolled in the Washington Physicians Health Program, Karen B. Domino, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington, Seattle and her colleagues conducted a study to identify factors that might predispose individuals to relapse. Here are some of their more interesting findings:

• Twenty-five percent had at least 1 relapse.
• A family history of a substance use disorder increased the risk of relapse 2.3 times.
• The use of a major opioid increased the risk of relapse significantly in the presence of a coexisting psychiatric disorder (5.8 times increased risk) but not in the absence of a coexisting psychiatric disorder.
• The presence of all three factors — major opioid use, dual diagnosis (presence of a coexisting psychiatric disorder) and family history — increased the risk of relapse 13.3 times.