A guide to staying in recovery after rehab

Recovering from an addiction is a significant milestone. If you’re working towards this milestone, you should be very proud of yourself.

However, life after rehab is where the sustainability of such a goal is measured, where recovery either becomes for the short-term or long-term, all depending on your next steps.

Sober living can be difficult to maintain on an initial basis. You’ll have completed the hard work of withdrawing from drugs and alcohol and rebuilding your life.

This is a time to celebrate and look ahead. However, it’s understandable that you may also worry about life after rehab, where you hope to avoid relapse risks, standing as the initial difficulties.

Reasonably, as this is a time where a mixture of emotions, experiences and actions will be encountered, it’s important to remember that you’re human. It is important to take each day as it comes, rather than worrying about what’s ahead, what could happen and what could amount from your recovery efforts.

However, there are some steps you can take to secure a healthier and happier future, with stronger possibilities of staying in recovery.

Here’s a guide to staying in recovery after rehab, provided by our team here at Step One Recovery, offering proactive steps to making sober living an easier, more manageable choice.

Life after leaving rehab

Life after rehab will be very different to your current reality. For starters, we hope that you’ll be detached from drugs and alcohol on both physical and psychological levels. This is something to truly celebrate and enjoy.

However, alongside a hopefully suppressed habit, you’ll have a new lifestyle to embark on, new coping strategies to make use of, and a new outlook on life.

However, through the good, comes the risk of losing such success, which for many is linked to relapse risks. Those risks are common for recovering addicts within the first few months of independent recovery, down to the whirlwind that life after rehab influences.

It’s also common to feel anxious, worried, low and disengaged as you accept and climatise to a new life, new relationships, new outlooks, new responsibilities, new routines and new lifestyle choices.

With this in mind, it is important to know what to expect of staying in recovery after rehab, it’s essential to know the realism around the test that it carries, and it is recommended that you prepare for such a change.

We, of course, aim to look for the positives and promote full recovery capabilities for all clients, and we of course forecast for sustainable sobriety. However, as we are all human, as personal triggers can resurface, and as life can get in the way, it is important to prepare for such recovery.

Here’s how to stay sober, here’s how to manage a positive lifestyle and here’s a guide to staying in recovery after rehab, safely and proactively.

A guide to staying in recovery after rehab

Reasonably, post-rehab life will be very different for every individual. Some individuals may struggle, others may thrive, some may find healthy coping strategies, while others may find it challenging to resonate with such steps.

However, through experience, there are some universal efforts that can help staying in recovery after rehab a little easier. Here’s a guide provided by our team at Step One Recovery, surrounding steps on how to maintain recovery.

Know your triggers

Knowing your personal triggers is a good starting point when aiming for ongoing recovery. Those triggers may have influenced your initial addiction, which may again resurface and cause similar effects. By knowing your triggers, you’ll have awareness of the type of exposure you can cope with, and the type you cannot.

Know relapse signs and symptoms

In tandem with personal triggers, it’s wise to know relapse triggers, including the signs and symptoms of relapse. By increasing your awareness, you’ll have a benchmark to follow, to ensure that your choices and behaviours are reducing your relapse risks.

Remember that a relapse can be mental, emotional and physical. In order to stay in recovery after rehab, it’s important to know the signs of each relapse risk.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle

Maintaining a healthy routine and lifestyle is a key step that can ease the process of staying in recovery after rehab. This is the time to harness your positive outlook, your wellbeing and your personal awareness.

Start by prioritising your nutrition, your mindfulness, your movement, your sleep and all other forms of wellbeing to protect your lifestyle.

Through healthy choices, you can reduce the risk of unpredictable triggers.

Maintain transparency

While being honest can be tough, especially if long-term recovery isn’t following the course that you envisioned, this is the time to be transparent. Be honest with yourself with those around you to ensure that you’re receiving the support that you need.

Avoid old influences

While returning to life after rehab, it can be easy to fall back into your old habits. By avoiding your old influences, you’ll have a greater chance of avoiding drug and alcohol exposure, helping you maintain clarity and a positive mindset.

Make use of aftercare

Aftercare is there for a reason. It’s provided to help you maintain recovery on a post-rehab basis. Aftercare services can help you remain grounded, accountable, committed and realistic about staying in recovery after rehab.

Lean on your relapse prevention plan

When leaving rehab, especially through our centres here at Step One Recovery, you’ll be provided with a relapse prevention plan. This plan will be your confidence, your assurance and your security while embarking on life after rehab.

You can continually strengthen your plan to fit your triggers and lifestyle, with full capabilities of preventing relapse.

Forgive yourself

A big part of our guide to staying in recovery after rehab surrounds emotional responses. You will be emotional through this course. Forgiving yourself for your prior behaviours or choices will help you ease and accept your future.

Celebrate the good

It can be easy to experience tunnel vision through life after rehab. Yet it is recommended that you celebrate the good, the milestones and the obstacles you’ve worked through. Acting as motivation and evidence that you can do it, you’ll soon warm to staying in recovery.

As we’ve shared above, your actions will control your recovery capabilities. Strive for the ability to stay in recovery and maintain sober living by following our guide.

We’re here for you at Step One Recovery to secure and ease sobriety. Reach out if you’re worried about recovery after rehab.