Maybe you are on your last day at Sunshine Coast Health Centre or another recovery centre. Maybe you are already home, reunited with your loved ones and the responsibilities of day-to-day living.
Whichever the case, treatment can quickly feel like an isolated experience. This is especially the case for those who don’t take the time to think about their post-treatment lives while they are still in treatment.
How can we carry the gifts of treatment forward in our lives? How can we preserve and maintain positive experiences of a fully conscious and sober life after completing treatment?
First, Recovery Doesn’t Have an End Date
Adopt an attitude of open-ended recovery, healing, and growth. Residential treatment has a start and end date, but long-term recovery doesn’t. Viewing treatment as a temporary diet runs the risk of forgetting everything learned once back home.
To fully honour the massive efforts made, consider sobriety a lifelong journey.
Sobriety is so much more than “never using again.” We are all human, and humans slip up and make mistakes. It’s about remembering the tools you’ve learned, noticing when to implement them, and sticking to it. Most importantly, don’t be hard on yourself if post-treatment life isn’t how you envisioned. It will take time!
Post-Treatment Relationships Might Change
The quality of our relationships directly impacts the progress we’ll make in our recovery. This means that post-treatment, we might need to have some tough conversations with the people in our lives.
Our loved ones are used to us being the way we have always been, but now we are changing. As we change, the dynamics in our relationships must also change – this is inevitable.
Having these much-needed conversations is no easy task. Recovery is about leaning into the discomfort of such moments of confrontation, challenge, and vulnerability. Remember, it’s okay to reach out to your support networks or seek professional help if you feel overwhelmed.
Maintain Social Support Connections
Ultimately, well-being is about a lifestyle change. The more we prioritize our sanity and health, the more we begin to make different choices in life.
As we heal and grow, it is very common to want to do different activities, be with different people, and talk about different topics. This is normal – we are changing.
Our new way of being requires similar-minded (and hearted) people to feel supported and encouraged. We don’t live in a vacuum. Each one of us needs like-minded, driven, and supportive people around us to thrive. Finding the right support (and the right social circle) is key.
Embrace the Post-Treatment Challenges
Recovery is not only about addiction. It is also about leaving behind our unhealthy habits that no longer serve us.
As we heal and grow, we begin to change in profound ways. Everything in our lives must adapt to who we are becoming, to who we were always meant to be. Embrace the challenges of such a change.
Sunshine Coast Health Centre and Georgia Strait Women’s Clinic are world-class centres for addiction treatment and mental health through a holistic approach that considers the physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of individuals in treatment and recovery. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance use or mental health, give us a call today.
