Making resolutions is a big part of new year’s. A new year, a fresh start and a chance to mend or bypass the mistakes of the last year with new goals and hopes for the future. For those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, drug rehab plays a big part in those plans and resolutions for the new year. Should drug and alcohol rehab be the next step for you or your loved one in the new year?

Drug Rehab: Is it Necessary?

In most cases, if you are seriously contemplating drug and alcohol rehab, there is a need for it. A medical treatment, it is necessary in cases where you have a psychological and physical dependence upon a particular drug or drugs. If you have tried to quit using your drug of choice and have not had any success maintaining abstinence for any length of time, drug rehab is necessary. If you have health problems and your doctor has told you that you need to stop using your drug of choice and yet you cannot, then drug rehab is necessary. If you know that your opportunities, your future and your reputation are being impaired by drugs and alcohol and you want to stop but can’t do it alone, then drug rehab is necessary.

Drug Rehab: How To Help a Loved One

If your concerns are not for yourself and your use of drugs and alcohol but the abuse of addictive substances by a family member or someone you love, then the same “tests” listed above apply. If you are having a hard time telling whether or not your loved one is having issues with drug abuse or drug addiction, apply the parameters listed above to their circumstances. If they are often under the influence or choose where or what they’ll do based on their ability to remain under the influence, if they lie about their drug use or deny the problem, if they have tried to get clean and sober or promised to stop using without success multiple times, then it is likely that drug rehab is a good new year’s plan for them, too.

The difference in this situation is that you may need to perform an intervention in order to help them understand that drug rehab is necessary. If you would like help staging an intervention for someone you care about, a professional interventionist can help.

Drug Rehab: Is Now the Time?

If you or someone you love is living the life of an active addict, then now is the time for drug rehab. Like any medical treatment for other chronic diseases, the sooner you get treatment and the more comprehensive that treatment is, the more likely you will be to succeed. If you would like to learn more about the drug and alcohol detox and addiction treatment programs at Michael’s House, contact us today for more information.

Preventing relapse after you graduate from a drug and alcohol rehab should be your primary goal. It is simultaneously the easiest time to keep your focus on relapse prevention and the hardest. It is easy because you are just out of rehab with a great support network and fresh from all the experiences that landed you in rehab in the first place. You know exactly why you need to avoid drinking or getting loaded, and you’ve just learned all the tools you need to remain clean and sober. On the other hand, it’s hard because you’re just out of rehab and have a world of things to do in terms of getting your life together and starting over.

Preventing Relapse After Drug Rehab: Set Reasonable and Achievable Goals

Your primary goal is not to pick up and use or drink. It’s far too overwhelming to wake up in the morning and think, “I will never use drugs or drink again.” Vague absolutes like “never” or “forever” are only going to cause you to panic and feel like you won’t be able to succeed. Rather, say to yourself, “I won’t drink or get loaded today.” And then set yourself another, accomplishable task. This could be extremely basic: Make your bed. Eat a healthy breakfast. Go for a run. Or it could be a little bit bigger: Update or create a resume.

For bigger tasks, you will need to create a list of smaller goals that will lead to you accomplishing the larger goal. For example, if “Find a job” is your larger goal, then your list of smaller goals might include: Update or create resume. Look at job listings on Craigslist. Apply for three jobs. Put together an interview outfit. Any one of those goals can be accomplished in one sitting, which will keep you from getting overwhelmed.

Preventing Relapse After Drug Rehab: Triggers

“Triggers” are a term for all those things that happen to you that make you want to drink or get loaded. While you can avoid some of them, some will be unavoidable. Perhaps a certain club makes you want to get loaded or seeing certain friends who use drugs makes you want to give up on being clean and give into your desire to get high. By simply avoiding these people and situations, you can avoid the pitfall of relapse.

Other triggers aren’t so easily sidestepped: emotions like anger or sadness, for example. When you’re used to numbing your emotions with pills and other drugs, it’s not so easy to find another way to make yourself feel better. During drug addiction recovery, however, you have the opportunity to change those behaviors and learn healthier ways to assuage your feelings until the urge to use passes. One healthy way is to pick one of those achievable goals described above and focus on that instead. Another is to call your sponsor or other supportive friends who can help you focus on the positive. Another way is to go to a meeting and stay with clean and sober people until the triggered feeling passes.

Do you have any advice for those who are trying to stay clean and sober after drug rehab?

It may not be your sister or your best friend, but maybe the cocaine addict, heroin addict, alcoholic or meth addict in your life is still close to you. You have watched them slowly, or quickly, hit that downward slide from drug abuser or recreational user to drug abuser to addict. You have commented, if jokingly, on how much they drink or get loaded. You may have gotten in fights with them about some of their questionable or dangerous actions under the influence. It’s clear to everyone who knows your friend that drugs and alcohol are a focus and a problem. Is it your responsibility to do anything about it?

Help a Friend with Addiction: Abandonment isn’t Necessary

If you haven’t done so, try talking to your friend seriously about the problem he or she has with drugs and alcohol. Point out a few concrete examples where his choice to get loaded or drunk hurt him or someone else. Let him know that you care about him and want him to get better, that you aren’t judging him for his behavior. Explain that you know that drug addiction is a disease and that it’s important to get help to stop.

Remember, it is dangerous for those with co-occurring medical disorders, obesity or a high dosage prescription painkiller addiction to detox without medical supervision. Do not recommend that your friend quit using cold turkey. It is essential that they go to a certified drug detox and addiction treatment facility to ensure their safety.

Help a Friend with Addiction: Talk to Someone Close to Them

If you feel that you may not be close enough emotionally to someone dealing with drug and alcohol addiction to be the one who begins the intervention process, then consider talking to someone who is. Their best friend, partner, spouse, or family member may have the same concerns that you do and want to do something about it. Choose someone who isn’t actively addicted to drugs and alcohol as well and approach the subject delicately. If the person you choose is in denial over the state of their loved one’s addiction, then you may be rewarded for your efforts with a hostile response. Don’t take it personally. Consider talking to someone else who is close to your friend or moving forward alone.

Help a Friend with Addiction: Stage an Intervention

If talking to your friend and those who are closer to him about his addiction does not work, consider staging an intervention. Gather together those who also want to help the addict in your life to heal. Have everyone speak briefly about events that prove your friend has a problem with drug and alcohol addiction. At the end of the process, invite your friend to immediately enter drug rehab. The person running the intervention should be responsible for finding a place in treatment for your friend to go to right away.

If you don’t feel comfortable running the intervention, you can engage the services of a professional interventionist. Call Michael’s House today for more information or to reserve a spot in our inpatient drug rehab for your friend.

The other day we posted about how relationships can hurt drug and alcohol addiction recovery. You get too involved in the relationship and stop focusing on what you need to do to get better and end up relapsing. Or you break up and you end up relapsing. Not good.

But someone pointed out to me that it’s not just the drug and alcohol addiction treatment and recovery that suffers; the relationship suffers, too. This is true. If you’ve ever been an addict in a relationship whether or not that person was an addict too or been with someone who was an addict, whether or not you were, then you know. Drug and alcohol addiction kills relationships, but drug and alcohol addiction recovery is bad for relationships as well.

New Relationships and Drug Addiction Treatment

Maybe you met each other at a meeting. Or maybe this is someone you knew when you were actively using, and you ran into each other and realized that you’re both doing well at the same time. Either way, there’s an attraction, a spark. You decided to follow through. Maybe not overtly-no one formally asked the other one out-but you ended up hanging out, getting coffee, et cetera. And soon it’s clear that there’s a romance happening.

The amount of clean time that either person has may or may not be a factor, since people who have been clean for five or 15 years are just as prone to relapse behind a relationship just like anyone else. If you’re new to recovery, handling the heavy emotions that come with relationships without drugs and alcohol as a buffer is a new concept. The emotional stress associated may be too much to handle and if you’re new to recovery, there are likely a dozen more productive and positive ways to spend your time that will build up your recovery and not risk tearing it down.

Old Relationships and Drug Addiction Treatment

Maybe you two used to use together, and now want to get clean together. Maybe your partner never used more than recreationally and you’re getting clean on your own. Either way, your choice to go through drug and alcohol addiction treatment has to be one that you make for yourself because, invariably, no matter how much you love your partner, the two of you will have issues during your drug addiction treatment due to the high stress and emotions that characterize recovery. Plus, more than likely, your partner won’t be shy about letting you know-repeatedly-everything you did to hurt him or her while you were using. It can be discouraging and even depressing to stay in the relationship, but during drug and alcohol treatment, it may also feel like the safest port available to you.

Your Lover is Not Your Doctor

Or your sponsor. Or your shrink. Or your priest. Or your parent. It’s hard to find the line of appropriate emotional sharing, especially when both drug treatment and a new relationship present you with such raw unfamiliar emotions. Do you just not tell your partner when you feel like drinking or getting high? What if you go to the same 12 step meetings? Know the same people? Will your partner’s response trigger resentment in you? Or something worse, like feelings of inadequacy?

What do you think? Do new relationships have a shot during drug and alcohol addiction treatment and recovery? Can old relationships survive the transition?

There are as many triggers to relapse after drug rehab as there are people currently enrolled in drug and alcohol addiction treatment. It can be as simple as the mention of a certain drug or the description of using it or what it’s like under the influence. For others, visual triggers like seeing someone use in a movie is enough where others must see it in person to feel like they want to get high or get drunk. Being offered something to drink can trigger the desire to use, even if alcoholism isn’t the main problem.

Emotional triggers are a huge issue as well, even if you spent a great deal of time in drug rehab addressing the issues that first made you seek escape in drugs and alcohol. Reminders of negative incidents in the past or uncomfortable emotions are difficult for everyone and for those who struggle with addiction issues, the first reaction may be to get drunk or high.

The sheer number of relapse triggers is why so many relapse even after successfully completing a drug and alcohol addiction treatment program. So how do you avoid relapse when you’re faced with a trigger?

Avoiding Relapse After Drug Rehab: Get. Out.

The best first way to avoid relapse after drug rehab: take yourself out of the situation. If you feel vulnerable or unsafe in any way no matter what the situation, get out. It’s easy enough if it’s a movie you’re watching: just turn the channel or leave the theater. But what about when it’s a more difficult situation, like roommates who use or have guests who get loaded in front of you? What if your trigger is emotional, just feeling stressed out, getting bad news or having problems with a relationship?

Though not easy to deal with, the answer is the same: If you live with people who are using around you or who often have people over who use despite your sensitivity to the situation, find a new place to live. If you work with people who are using around you, find a new job as soon as you can. If you are in a relationship that stresses you out to the point that you want to relapse, get out of the relationship. Though you can’t control what happens, you can protect yourself and control your reaction to the situation.

In the Meantime…

Getting out may not be as simple as walking away. It may take time for you to find a new job, a new home, new places to hang out, new friends. What do you do in the meantime? Though you may not be able to squash the trigger permanently-and really, that will never happen-you can always remove yourself from the situation for the moment. If you can’t leave the building for whatever reason, go to another room or step outside, put on headphones to drown out the conversation, go online. Reach out to a sponsor or go to a meeting for support. If you can leave the physical presence of the people or situation that is causing you stress, just take a walk or head out to a coffee shop, window shopping, anything to put some space between you and anything that could interfere with your recovery.

What are your triggers? What tempts you to relapse? How do you avoid temptation?

It’s a big debate among those in recovery: is medical use of prescribed medication a relapse if that medication is physically addictive?

Because so many end up in drug rehab due to developing an addiction to their medical prescription for drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin, codeine, Xanax and more, it’s a concern in the recovery community that using these drugs at all, even for medical purposes, is a relapse.

The Scenario: Prescription Drugs in Recovery

Say you get into a car accident or undergo surgery. As you recover from the physical injury, your doctor prescribes you oxycodone, Percocet, or hydrocodone to help mitigate your pain as you recovery. Or maybe, after your car accident, you develop anxiety about driving in cars or being on the road, a problem which your doctor responds to by prescribing you Xanax or another anti-anxiety benzodiazepine. Is the simple act of taking these drugs exactly as prescribed a relapse if you have been or are currently undergoing drug and alcohol rehab?

Prescription Painkillers as Relapse: The Argument For

Many in recovery, often those in 12-step meetings who believe in 100 percent abstinence at all costs, will tell you that, yes, even in the examples described above, use of these drugs is a relapse. They will say that because you do not have a tolerance for them, you will likely experience some sort of euphoria or “high” when you take them and for that reason alone, it’s not okay. They will point out that alcohol is legally available as well and that, by following the same logic, you might determine that one or two drinks with dinner or at a holiday celebration shouldn’t be termed a relapse, either, even if alcohol wasn’t your drug of choice. To people who believe that any use of prescription drugs when it isn’t medically necessary to keep you alive is a relapse and it isn’t just that it could lead to you actively using again but that it is a relapse in itself and that you are no longer clean and sober.

Prescription Painkillers as Relapse: The Argument Against

Others don’t believe that the medical use of a prescription drug of any kind, despite its addictive potential, is a relapse unless you abuse it. According to this view, if you take your medication exactly as prescribed and do not increase your dosage or your dosing schedule in any way and then stop taking the drug completely when you are no longer in pain or feeling anxious, then it is not a relapse. If you aren’t enhancing the drug’s effect by mixing it with alcohol or other drugs, doctor shopping for someone who will give you more than you need, or embellishing on the pain associated with an injury in order to receive more powerful medications, then you don’t have to worry about returning to drug and alcohol rehab as a result.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever been prescribed painkillers while you were enrolled in inpatient or outpatient drug rehab? Have you had a sponsor drop you because you were taking potentially addictive medication? Do you feel like taking prescription drugs is a relapse if you are in recovery? If you don’t believe that it’s okay to take prescription painkillers during drug addiction recovery, how do you recommend those with

Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

September is Recovery Month every year and this year is no different. That means that the focus this month is on the benefits of drug and alcohol addiction treatment as well as the needs of those who are in recovery whether they are enrolled in an inpatient drug rehab, an outpatient alcohol treatment center, a prescription drug detox or a club drug rehab.

What is Recovery Month?

The benefits of drug and alcohol rehab extend well beyond the individual and into his or her family as well as the larger community. Everyone benefits when someone gets the medical treatment they need for drug addiction and Recovery Month shines the light on those advantages of continuing drug and alcohol addiction treatment research and ensuring that those facilities are continually available to those who need them.

Across the country, communities rally in support of drug and alcohol rehab during Recovery Month. According to the Recovery Month website, “the growing support from elected officials, policymakers, education leaders, judges, health providers, the faith community, and many other sectors, result in a public awareness effort of impressive magnitude.” This public awareness helps generate an annual resurgence in raising funds, continued public education and renewed attention to local laws that address drug addiction treatment.

Recovery Month: Everyone Can Get Involved

Local communities of every size participate in Recovery Month. With marches, rallies, tables at street fairs and festivals, and a heavy drive to educate and inform the public on the need for continued drug rehab resources and the local laws that govern substance abuse treatment, there is a way for anyone who wants to to get involved. Recovering addicts can find a forum to share their story. Family members who have lost their loved ones to drug addiction can talk about what might have saved the drug addict in their family and how you can protect your loved ones. Victims and family members of victims of DUI can share their story, as well. Help advertise for Recovery Month events or even just attend and learn something new. Because it is for everyone in the community, events that highlight Recovery Month are accessible to everyone in the community, as well.

Recovery Month: Focusing on the Future

A big part of Recovery Month, aside from keeping the public aware of what’s available in terms of drug addiction treatment and reminding everyone what resources are available, is to push for new change in drug addiction treatment. Whether it’s new laws or new research, if you have a message about drug abuse treatment that you’d like to bring to the public’s attention, then Recovery Month is the time to get it out there. Go online to the Recovery Month website to find associated events in your area or to download a kit for 2009. Friend them on Facebook to help get the message out to your friends and family. Even the smallest action can have an impact.

When many people stop using drugs and alcohol, they find that they have a whole lot of extra time on their hands. All the time that they previously spent getting loaded, making money to get more drugs and alcohol, masterminding and perpetrating fraud, burglary and other crimes to get more of their drug of choice, and recovering after drinking too much or using too many drugs is suddenly open. With a clear mind for the first time, this can be a scary prospect.

Because the first year of recovery after completing a drug or alcohol rehab program -the first few months, especially-are so crucial to healing after drug and alcohol addiction, it is especially important that new vices stay far, far away from your list of acceptable ways to spend your time. Here’s why:

Unhealthy Time Fillers During Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery

Unfortunately, not everyone makes the most healthy choices in terms of how to fill up their new found free time after drug and alcohol rehab. Some just flounder without ideas. Others take up new vices like gambling that turn into new addictions. Even seemingly innocuous activities like watching TV endlessly or going to movies may not be the best choice because it’s very isolating. The idea is not to choose activities that remove you from interacting with others who are healthy, clean and sober.

Gambling, especially, is a gateway back to alcohol and drug addiction. With the free flow of drinks at the casino and the stress of losing, it’s hard to avoid the temptation to relapse.

Healthy Time Fillers During Drug and Alcohol Addiction Recovery

There are so many things to choose from when it comes to picking activities to fill your time in early drug and alcohol addiction recovery that the sheer number of options alone can be overwhelming. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to help narrow those choices down:

• Does it trigger your desire to use in any way? If the activity involves drinking or drugs or people who use or makes you feel insecure or unhappy (which may make you prone to relapse)
• Is it isolating? Certainly it’s okay to spend some time on your own reflectively but if you spend all of your time by yourself and don’t try to build a new community of friends and support, then it’s only a matter of time before you relapse.
• Are you having fun? If you’re not interested in what you’re doing, it’s not going to hold your interest for long. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t try new things but if you do try something and decide it’s not for you, don’t feel bad for dropping it. Just take the next day to find something new that doesn’t trigger you, allows you to make positive friendships, and that you enjoy.

What Do You Recommend?

Ultimately, when you don’t make positive, pro-active choices, the empty holes in your schedule can eventually be filled with relapse, which will lead-if not to overdose or other deadly results-back to drug rehab. There’s certainly a lot of fear in those who are new to recovery when they ask: What am I supposed to do with myself now that I’m not using?

What are your suggestions for those new to drug and alcohol addiction recovery? How do you recommend they spend their time?

We’ve talked recently about those who get out of legal consequences for their actions by focusing on their alcohol and drug addiction issues. Here’s another case where a man is getting out of jail early pending trial in order to enter inpatient drug rehab. Because of his particular crime, however, people are very upset about the decision.

DUI and Drug Addiction

Mistakes made under the influence commonly end up in court. Damage to private and public property, disorderly in public, physical assault, breaking and entering, carjacking, armed robbery, murder and manslaughter are often bad choices that resulted after making the first bad choice to get loaded. When DUI is the issue at hand-especially when the DUI ends in the death of an innocent pedestrian or another motorist-public opinion makes it more difficult to get a reduction in sentence for attending drug and alcohol rehab.

A Jackson Hole, Wyoming, man, however, who was driving under the influence of prescription drugs and killed a motorcyclist, is being released pending trial to enter a residential drug and alcohol treatment program. The fact that it is an inpatient drug addiction treatment center is important, because he is not technically being released on his own recognizance but still under 24-hour surveillance. However, some locals are concerned that this is too lenient and sends the wrong message.

DUI and Drug Rehab in Jackson: The Specifics of the Case

According to Amanda H. Miller at Jackson Hole Daily: “Ninth Circuit Court Judge Curt Haws, who came from Pinedale to fill in for Judge Timothy C. Day, signed an order overriding Day’s earlier order that Nathaniel A. Hubbs, 31, be held for community safety without bond on a probation violation charge.

“Haws revoked Day’s order and connected the bail in the probation violation to the felony case, which was bound over to the district court last week.”

Hubbs was already out on bail and on probation when he got arrested for DUI-a charge to which he pleads not guilty-and the first judge said that the bail did not apply to the DUI charge. The new judge, however, overturned that decision, which has quite a few people upset.

Dick Mulligan is Hubbs’ attorney. He says that he will file a motion to lower the bond and to have Hubbs released into an inpatient drug rehab.

Teton County Attorney Steve Weichman likely will not object to these motions, though he is asking that it be stipulated that Hubbs not be in possession of or use any of the prescription drugs that allegedly caused Hubbs to get into an accident and also that he not be in contact with any of the doctors or pharmacies that supplied him with those drugs.

Weichman says: “I have a renewed awareness of a defendant’s right to release. I’m also grateful the Wyoming courts have a lot of power to fashion release terms.”

What Do You Think?

Is it okay that Hubbs could end up in drug rehab instead of jail while awaiting his trial, currently set for next February? He is accused of killing 54-year-old Martin Burbey when his GMC Yukon drifted into oncoming traffic last month and could end up serving 20 years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary if he is found guilty. Does the crime and the severity of injury to the victims of that crime matter when it comes to determining whether or not drug rehab can be used to reduce the sentence?

Part of any drug addiction treatment program as well as most people’s lives after they graduate from drug and alcohol rehab are 12-step meetings: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and others. These meetings are open to anyone who identifies themselves as an addict (in some cases, they are open to family members and supporters as well) and they help many stay clean and sober both in and out of drug rehab.

Unfortunately, it’s not the most exciting way to spend your time. A friend of mine recently told me, “Look, I hate meetings. I can’t stand the whining, the gossip and the fact that I lose hours of my life with my ass falling asleep in a metal chair. But I go and I’m going to keep going, because it’s keeping me clean.”

It’s true: meetings are not fun. Newcomers and chronic relapsers can get on your nerves as can the superiority of those who have been clean for years. The coffee is bad, and the snacks are cheap. Metal folding chairs will become the bane of your 12-step experience as will the sleazy 13th steppers.

So how do you get what you need from an NA or AA meeting when you really just have to go?

1. Bring your hobby. For many, just spending time in the meeting is the important thing, and you don’t have to have idle hands to listen to the speaker. I’ve seen people in meetings do everything from knit to carve clay figurines. Drawing, hand sewing, artist trading cards…whatever it takes to keep you from clawing your (or someone else’s) eyes out as long as it doesn’t smell, make a mess or take up a ton of space.

2. Get involved. What’s the opposite of dropping out of a 12-step meeting? Getting involved. Speak up in meetings, introduce yourself to newcomers, talk to people after the meeting. Volunteer to clean up after the meeting or get yourself voted into a position of authority. Maybe if you have a larger hand in your regular meetings, you’ll be able to choose topics that interest you.

3. Change meetings. If you live in a city or any metropolitan area, you have a large schedule of meetings to choose from. Though you most likely choose according to the time of the meeting or where it’s located, it could be worth it for you to get up a little bit earlier, stay out later or drive a little bit further in order to explore the different meetings available. If you live in a smaller town and don’t have a ton of meetings to choose from, then start your own. Why not? That’s the beauty of 12-steps. Pick a name for your meeting, find a location, choose the first topic and advertise. Keep showing up and so will more and more people.

Whatever you have to do to make meetings more interesting, do it. It’s worth it to build a strong support system that will long outlast drug and alcohol rehab and carry you through a lifetime of sobriety.