After a successful detox and intensive rehabilitation program, many people return home only to deal with a tangle of family issues resulting from the addiction itself. Returning home and establishing new routines following rehabilitation can create challenges. These unanticipated stressors reinforce the importance of maintaining a schedule of support groups and individual therapy. Without this ongoing support, building a healthy lifestyle following treatment may be difficult.
In general terms, health and wellness include adequate nutrition, physical activity, and social interaction. Mental and physical wellness doesn’t just show up; we have to make a plan and stick to it.
Appropriate Aftercare
Probably the most essential aspect of long-term addiction management is engaging in an aftercare program. During your intensive rehabilitation program, you will be looking at your addiction and its underlying causes. Therapy will help unpack these areas of your life; however, the practical application can only be fully realized once you’re outside treatment. This is where you learn to cope with challenges, triggers, and the development of new choices and habits during daily living.
Aftercare programs, including sober living homes, can help ease us back into our lives once again while we’re getting ongoing support from clinical professionals and peers in community rehab programs. Developing compassion and self-awareness during this phase can help individuals heal and ensure long term wellness.
Community Support
When you consider your community, who do you think of? You may view your family as a source of support. If your biological family is not available or an appropriate choice, you may consider developing relationships with people in the support group you are attending.
You may become involved in church-related activities and develop relationships there. Many churches host support groups, not just related to substance misuse. Some facilities host divorce support groups, parenting groups, and grief support groups, among other groups.
Think of community support as a daily network and extension of your specific addiction recovery therapy and groups.
Healthy Lifestyle Habits
The bedrock of healthy living is healthy habits. Without healthy lifestyle habits, the knowledge or insight we gain about our behaviors is meaningless. Developing healthy habits includes exploring hobbies and interests such as gardening, hiking, or working out. In fact, just about anything outside of substance misuse can provide a healthy distraction and is sustainable over a long period. Other healthy habits include eating nutritious food and meal prepping.
When we consider how nutrition fuels our cells and our energy, it is easier to become more conscious or mindful about what we eat. Newer research also shows how nutrition can affect our mood through our gut. If we continuously eat food that’s high in sugar, our energy levels will drop as our bodies struggle to cope with the high glucose levels. When that happens, we’re not going to feel very optimistic about our recovery if we’re always tired and sluggish.
It is worth reminding yourself that your body, after detox and rehabilitation, is attempting to heal from the effects of substance misuse. Nutrition, due to its impact on your energy and how you feel, is the cornerstone for long-term addiction management.
Education and a well-designed aftercare treatment program can help reduce cravings, manage withdrawal symptoms, and address other mental health concerns that may arise as you journey through recovery.
After a successful detox and intensive rehabilitation program, many of us return home only to deal with the complications of establishing new routines. Life following rehabilitation can create challenges. These sometimes unanticipated stressors reinforce why maintaining a schedule of attending support groups and individual therapy is essential. Without this ongoing support, building a healthy lifestyle following treatment may be difficult. Surrounded by the sublime landscape of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, the Detox Center of Colorado offers a solution-based transitional residence program aimed at accountability and recovery. Against a backdrop of clean, mountain air, your substance abuse or mental health recovery is supported by a range of treatment and aftercare options developed with your needs in mind. Call the Detox Center of Colorado at (303) 952-5035.
