All recovery programmes should inform their clients and their families to prepare for the possibility of lapse and relapse. A good treatment programme will include advice on relapse prevention; triggers and signs to look out for; planning for difficult situations; and advice on how to mitigate a lapse and keep a single episode from becoming a full-blown relapse.
Relapse Prevention
A key part of relapse prevention training is for clients to be made aware that they will always need to manage and monitor how they are doing, even many years down the road from treatment.
Relapse prevention strategies require each person to make a plan for how they are going to tackle situations that could bring about a lapse. Key factors to focus on are:
- What could trigger a lapse for you?
- What are the danger-signs that you can recognise in yourself?
- What would you do to avoid or deal with that situation?
- Do you have friends or family that could help you at these times?
Clients can work on plans, in the relative safety of their rehabilitation programme, to cover these factors and prepare themselves for the types of challenge that they will have to face when they move back into the community at large.
How does a relapse affect my recovery?
If you relapse, stop your use of drugs or drinking straight away and get some support immediately. Either contact the treatment centre who have been supporting you in your recovery or go to your GP. Get rid of the drugs or alcohol and leave the place where you have been using straight away.
Try and visit or phone someone who has supported you during your treatment or anyone you can reach that will help you right now. Once the immediate crisis is over, try to identify the triggers that caused you to lapse
and use the situation as a learning experience – plan ahead to avoid it happening again!
If you lapse while you are in treatment, talk to your key worker straight away. Some centres will ask you to leave for a while, until you are ‘clean’ again and ready to get back into the programme. Each treatment centre will have different rules regarding a lapse. Be prepared to step back a stage if you do relapse. You need support and may have to begin some phase of your recovery again, to ensure that you are offered the support appropriate to ‘where you are at’. Remember, you haven’t failed, you have had a set-back and you can beat this.
Can I achieve long-term recovery?
YES! A relapse is not the end of the road. Many people go on after a relapse to live a completely drug or alcohol free life. It’s important to recognise that you will always need to manage yourself in terms of drugs or alcohol to avoid a relapse in time. Joining support groups such as Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous could provide you with a support network for life.
Coolmine Graduate Life-Long Learning Support Group, run by graduates of our programmes, for graduates of our programmes, offers a supportive social network for people with a shared experience of recovery.