How to Plan for Relapse Prevention

Relapses happen. This is an very unattractive part of treatment and recovery for alcoholics and drug addicts.Therapists and drug and alcohol counselors have to accept this inevitability for some of their clients and broach the subject. There are certain factors that contribute to relapses. Some of those include cravings and urges, lifestyle imbalances, the vulnerability of the body and mind, and the addicted finding themselves in high risk situations. Prevention techniques employed against these factors are the use of detachment, living a well-balance life, utilizing the HALTS method, and using avoidance strategies.

Instructions

• 1

  Discuss openly with those in recovery the factors that contribute to relapses, like cravings and urges, living unstructured lifestyles, how vulnerable their minds are to the power of suggestion and how vulnerable their bodies are to slip back into drug and alcohol use and abuse.

• 2

  Teach clients the techniques that they will need to help them fight against relapsing. Employing detachment, living a well-balanced and structured life, letting them know that when they are hungry, angry, lonely, tired and/or sick, they should address if issue they are experiencing, and showing them how to avoid high risk situations like going to a bar would be for the alcoholic.

• 3

  Encourage clients to write in a diary every day, chronicling their daily activities and showing the journal entries to the counselor, so the counselor can see what direction the client is heading. This will enable the counsellor to intervene early, if the client is headed in the wrong direction.

• 4

  Encourage clients to develop a list of triggers that will lead them back to using. Write down ways in which they can counteract the trigger with something more productive.

• 5

  Influence clients to attend support meetings like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and attend group therapy, as a means of seeing that they are not alone in their disease.