Are you considering entering an intensive outpatient program and starting the process of recovering from your substance use disorder? Deciding to join treatment is the first stage of your recovery and part of the early recovery process. Let’s look at what you can expect when you enter early recovery from addiction.
What’s Classified as Outpatient Addiction Services?
When you enter early recovery for addiction, you may choose to join an outpatient program, like those offered at Mind and Body Wellness. You’ll receive care and treatment on an outpatient basis. This means you’ll go to the treatment center to receive support services and go home at night to your family. While at the center, you’ll receive counseling and various psychiatric treatment methods to help you overcome your addiction and any co-occurring mental health issues. You may also participate in other treatments, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), ketamine therapy, and recovery coaching. Individuals in our intensive outpatient treatment program usually meet several times a week for several hours each day for the duration of the program.
What are Some Challenges Faced in Early Recovery?
When you begin your journey into early recovery for addition, you’ll experience some challenges as you stop using your drug of choice and begin the process of healing. Common early recovery addiction challenges include:
- Cravings – Experiencing cravings or the desire to use your drug of choice is expected during the early stages of recovery. Professional treatment programs can help you manage these through therapy and medication if needed.
- Emotional Stress – You may feel certain emotional stressors while detoxing and beginning your recovery. For example, when you get angry or agitated in your previous life, you may have simply self-medication with your drug of choice. Now, you must deal with your feelings without using chemical substances.
- Mental Health Issues – If you have any preexisting mental health issues, you may experience worsening symptoms. The good news is that many treatment centers offer dual diagnosis services designed to help you overcome your addiction while treating your mental health.
- Old Friends – If all your old friends still use drugs or drink, hanging around them may cause you to want to use again to fit in. In this scenario, avoiding hanging out with your old friends and finding new hobbies and friends you can enjoy without imbibing may be best.
- Relationship Changes – Your relationships with your family members will change. If there were hard feelings due to your drug use, you might find the issues being presented to you again as you and your family members recover from the trauma of substance abuse.
- Relapse Triggers – While you should experience very few relapse triggers while in the treatment center receiving therapy, you may still have them at home. This could be due to the times you used to use drugs or by driving past places where you used to do drugs.
- What to Do With Your Freetime – When you’re not using drugs or drinking, you’ll have a lot of extra free time because you’re not drunk or high, and you may struggle to find ways to fill that time.
What are Some Coping Mechanisms to Help Navigate Early Recovery from Addiction?
When you first enter treatment, you’ll be given some early recovery skills to help you detox and navigate care throughout your program. This is a time to focus on learning new coping mechanisms and developing new hobbies to help you fill all your newfound free time.
- Stay Away From Your Old Habits – When you first enter early recovery for addiction, it’s best to stay away from your old habits. This can include not hanging out with your old friends or visiting the places where you used to take drugs or drink.
- Get Help for Any Underlying Mental Health Conditions – If you have underlying mental health conditions, like depression or anxiety, you should seek out a qualified therapist to help you manage those conditions. A good treatment center will offer help for both addiction and mental health issues.
- Develop a New Routine – Take the time to develop a new daily routine that focuses on your health and wellness and gives you time to participate in your new hobbies.
- Take Time for Self-Care – Take time to relax and unwind daily. This could mean taking a hot bath at the end of your day, going to bed and getting up at specific times, eating a healthy diet, and relaxing by doing yoga or meditation or reading a good book.
- Join an Aftercare Program – You’ll want to join an aftercare program to maintain long-term sobriety. This could mean joining a step-based program in your community or finding a counselor to help you continue your recovery after completing your initial treatment program.
Navigating Early Recovery with Help from Mind and Body Wellness
Mind and Body Wellness in Franklin, TN can help you on your road to sobriety with our intensive outpatient treatment program. We offer a variety of counseling and psychiatric services to help you stop using drugs or drinking alcohol and maintain your sobriety for the long term.
To get started, call us at 615-637-1532 or book an appointment online.
