Addiction – The Big Words Blog Site

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a of focus is Health/Wellness. If you’ve become addicted to a drug of abuse, a challenging facing you is recovery and then avoiding relapse. Some former users can avoid relapse, while for others it’s an ongoing battle. The following contributed post is entitled, 4 Ways For Recovering Addicts To Avoid A Relapse.

* * *

Overcoming an addiction is an incredibly difficult thing to do, but even once you have beaten it, your journey doesn’t end there. There is no simple cure to addiction and it’s something that you will live with for the rest of your life. That means that there is always the risk of relapse, so you need to be very careful. However, there are ways that you can reduce the chances of a relapse and continue on your recovery journey. Whether you are recovering from addiction yourself or you have helped a loved one through it, these methods for avoiding relapse can be very useful to you.

Pexels CCO License

Continued Treatment

The most effective way to avoid relapse is to continue with treatment in some form. A lot of people find that they leave a rehabilitation facility feeling as though they will never return to their addiction, but that doesn’t last forever and they may end up relapsing. But if you continue with outpatient treatment for addiction, it makes things a lot easier. You will be reminded of the tools that you used to beat the addiction in the first place and you can also learn new methods to help you rebuild your life and resist the temptations of your addiction. Having a support network there is incredibly important if you want to avoid relapse.

Avoid Dangerous Situations

One of the biggest issues that recovering addicts have is that a lot of their social circles are built around their addiction. But if you continue to put yourself in dangerous situations with other addicts, it makes it incredibly difficult to avoid temptation. It can be difficult to leave old friends behind but you need to put yourself first and consider your own health. Try to find new hobbies or groups to join so you can build a social circle outside of your addiction.

Create A Healthy Schedule

Having a healthy schedule in place will give structure to your life and help you to move forward and achieve your goals. This schedule will include things like treatment times, spending time with family, working, and exercising. As you build a healthy schedule and start to do more positive things in your life, it helps to remind you why you wanted to get away from your addiction in the first place.

Don’t Get Complacent

Complacency is the biggest danger for people that are in recovery. It’s important to remember that your addiction will always be there and you can never take your recovery for granted. Even if it has been years, there is always the chance that you will relapse. But when people get complacent and think that they’re going to be fine, that’s when they start to let things slip. They stop keeping up with their schedule or they visit old friends that may put them in dangerous situations. This is when a relapse is most likely to happen, so make sure that you never get complacent.

You can never take your recovery for granted and there is always the risk of relapse, but if you follow these tips, you can reduce the chance of that happening.

A major focus of my blog is Health and Wellness. Substance abuse can become a lifelong struggle for some people – sometimes our friends and relatives, and it’s not always clear in terms of how to help them. The following contributed post is thus entitled; How To Help A Loved One Overcome Substance Abuse And Addiction.

* * *

From Pexels

Learning that a loved one is addicted to drugs or alcohol is a scary, stressful, and upsetting experience. Naturally, you want to help them, but with so many people telling you that “they’ll only stop when they’re ready,” you can be left feeling conflicted and helpless. Thankfully, while it’s true that an addict is the only person who can make positive changes in their life, there are still steps that you can take to kickstart these changes and try to curb addictive behaviors. With that in mind, here are a few things that you can do to help a loved one overcome their addiction.

Never Turn A Blind Eye
Reaching out to someone with a drug or alcohol problem is never easy, which often leads friends and family members to turn a blind eye and ignore toxic behaviors. However, the person that you’re worried about is never going to know that you’re concerned until you tell them that you are. While this may be an uncomfortable conversation, it’s important that you open up these lines of communication and try to make a difference. If you don’t, it’s unlikely that anything will change.

Intervene Before Things Get Serious
Ideally, this initial conversation should occur before anything gets too serious. All too often, families and friends wait until there is a major crisis, like an arrest, sacking, overdose, or another serious health issue, before they take action and decide that enough is enough. However, like other illnesses, addiction can be best treated during the earlier stages. For this reason, you should start a conversation and express your concerns the moment toxic behaviors begin.

Don’t Shame Or Pass Judgment
Alcoholics and drug addicts rarely start taking drugs or drinking heavily for no reason. More often than not, there is an underlying issue that they struggle with, like anxiety or depression, and they take drug and alcohol as a way to self-medicate. It’s important that you recognize these reasons and avoid passing judgment or shaming the person that you’re worried about. Usually, this will make them feel worse about themselves, which will only make them use more.

Offer Professional Help And Support
Addicts need the support of those that care about them, but, most of the time, they also need help from a professional. After all, they have years of knowledge on addiction and know the best ways to help. They also have access to medical professionals, like LifeBrite Laboratories, who can run tests and ensure that your loved one has definitely stopped using. This is incredibly important as many addicts try to hide their addiction from those around them.

Support Them Through Their Journey
The journey to sobriety isn’t an easy one, and there will be many hurdles for your loved one to face along the way. For this reason, it’s vital that you show that you’re supportive and care about your loved one and their journey. The moment it starts to feel like you can’t be bothered anymore, your friend or family member will notice, and this could impact their recovery. You should also avoid drinking around the person and never enable their toxic behaviors.

Helping a loved one overcome addiction will never be easy, but, hopefully, with the advice and guidance above, you have some idea of how to start.