Relapse Prevention Plan

Preventing Relapse, Staying Sober

It is important to remember: With a relapse prevention plan – you don’t have to relapse to work it.

The main things we are trying to identify are high-risk situations and how to manage them. We all have “self-talk” in our head and it can lead to positive or negative thinking. In a relapse situation, the self-talk can be negative feelings and emotions. Negative self-talk can lead to unwanted and negative actions and relapse.

Your relapse prevention plan will help build critical thinking and avoidance strategies – so you can stay focused on achievable goals without activating your stressors.

Relapse Prevention Daily Check-in

• Desire – What are my intentions for the day? What do I plan to get out of this day?
• Urge – Am I craving my substance of choice? Is my schedule today manageable enough to keep my stress level low? Do I plan on doing anything that would sabotage my recovery or the goals in my treatment plan?
• Feelings and Emotions – Check in with yourself and your sponsor about how you are feeling emotionally. If your sponsor is not available to talk with, find someone you trust so you can process and understand the feelings and emotions you are having that day. It is important in relapse prevention to write your feelings on a piece of paper, in a journal or on your computer. Writing them out will give you time to think and also help with the processing of your feelings. Processing and understanding your feelings might be hard at first, however, you will begin to feel better when you start to identify exactly what it is you are experiencing emotionally on a daily basis.
• Action – How are you taking positive action in your relapse prevention plan?  How are you building a better quality of life for yourself so you can move forward in a positive direction?
• Think – Always think about how you react to the choices and actions of your daily life. Journaling will help you identify strategies to build a positive outcome and how to avoid triggers that once held you back in life. Remember, you can’t think your way out of problems that you behaved your way into. You must look at your behaviors and understand the way they play out in your new life of recovery.

Mindfulness for Preventing Relapse

Mindfulness is having the internal focus to be quietly aware of your own thoughts and impulses – without judgment – and without acting on the impulses.

Mindfulness provides skills and practices to loosen our identification with thoughts. This helps individuals to recognize that the content of a thought (and the resulting habitual emotions and triggers) are not absolute “truth.”

By creating a space between emotional triggers and habitual reactions – individuals can create a permanent cognitive re-structuring away from self destructive and habitual addictive behaviors.

The Result?

Calmness, inner peace; and increasing compassion for self and others.

Many who practice mindfulness meditation experience a gradual and natural increase in gratitude. Another benefit of mindfulness meditation is personal growth and a deepening experience of personal spirituality.

Mindfulness is an essential skill for addiction recovery and relapse prevention at Aspen Intervention Wellness Center.

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This Relapse Prevention Plan article was first seen on New Start Recovery Solutions; and was developed by David Burke.