Aftercare Options to Help Prevent Relapse

Treatment doesn’t end when you leave the rehab facility. Instead, you’ll be given the tools you need and a plan to help prevent relapse and stay healthy. While the treatment in the facility can be hard, returning to normal life, along with its stresses and emotional triggers, can also be difficult. Patients are expected at that point to take their treatment into their own hands, follow the plan their therapist has laid out, and use their coping skills. This is rarely easy and ongoing support generally involves a variety of different aftercare options.

Aftercare is also the longest portion of treatment since it continues for a long time after the initial therapy is complete. Therapy continues to provide patients emotional support and skills to handle the complex situations they encounter and keep them focused on staying healthy.

Family Therapy

One great type of aftercare option is family therapy. These programs are designed to help family members understand what is happening with the patient and give them the guidance they need to provide support at home. In some cases, the family relationships are the underlying cause of the addictive behavior and addressing those issues is key to helping the patient heal. Families learn how to communicate effectively, listen, solve problems, and change their behaviors in ways that are positive. Family therapy can include individual counseling, marital or relationship counseling, family group therapy and talk sessions, family educational programs, and even 12-step programs.

Talking together as a family can help address issues like finances, emotions, expression, and communication that often come to the front in situations of addiction. Therapy can also help handle practical issues like helping someone reintegrate into the workforce, give nutritional guidance to the family, or help resolve other logistical issues. The goal of family therapy is to help the patient continue on the road to recovery and prevent other family members from turning to substance abuse to handle their issues.

The Value of Aftercare

Unfortunately, relapse is common. In the United States, it is estimated that nine percent of the population has some sort of substance abuse issue. Among these people, statistics put the rate of relapse at 37-56 percent. Far too high. However, research also shows that aftercare services causes these rates of relapse to decrease significantly. Using and completing your aftercare treatment is just as important as going into a rehab facility in the first place. So when the patient makes the commitment to go to a treatment facility, they should also commit to follow through with aftercare.

That said, patients should not feel discouraged if they relapse. Instead, being in aftercare means you already have the support network to help you get back on track more quickly and back to the healthy lifestyle you’ve learned. Even if a relapse does occur, people attending aftercare tend to have a less dramatic relapse. They are able to reach out for the services they need, and are reminded to use the skills they’ve learned in rehab and after to continue to combat their addiction.

Aftercare Plans

Thankfully, there are lots of resources to help patients and their families prevent relapse. The more advantage is taken of these resources the better chance the patient has of preventing a relapse or quickly recovering. Generally, before a patient leaves the rehab facility, a therapist walks them through their aftercare plan to meet their specific needs. They’ll cover everything from individual and family therapy to prescriptions, living arrangements, monitoring, check-ins, and more.

When you call Rehab-Finder.Org, you’ll not only get information on inpatient treatment options, but they’ll also cover the types of aftercare offered by each facility. To learn more, give us a call at 877-251-4813.