Category: Addiction Recovery

Anger Management as a Tool to Maintain Sobriety

man with anger management during treatment

Anger Management as a Tool to Maintain Sobriety

Anger is a normal and healthy emotion experienced by basically everyone. However, for many people, it can lead to stress, poor responses to input, and out of control emotional flare-ups that lead to drinking in order to control those emotions. Most of us are familiar with the urge to have a drink to cool down from anger – and that feeling can be an extremely difficult trigger when you’re in recovery.

Learning how to manage anger, usually through therapy and anger management classes, is therefore a very common part of addiction treatment. In fact, more and more treatment centers now offer tools like anger management, stress management, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and emotional regulation as normal elements of addiction recovery. Here’s how and why anger management plays a role in maintaining your sobriety.

Uncontrolled Anger can Trigger Relapse

Anger is a very normal emotion. However, if you’re not in control, it can be overwhelming and destructive. For many of us, anger results in poor emotional regulation, extreme stress response, and learned behavior patterns. Each of these can result in triggering an episode of drinking. For example:

Out-of-control anger is often learned from parents or results from not being taught emotional regulation. This means that people with anger management problems often have poor emotional regulation, so any emotion can be overwhelming. Without mechanisms to regulate emotions like anger, it’s easy to resort to substance abuse to manage your anger and other feelings.
Anger can be a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder and complex PTSD, both of which require additional treatment. Both also greatly increase your risk of substance abuse as you look for means of coping with things that are out of your control.
Anger greatly elevates your stress response which increases cravings for substances that release dopamine and serotonin in the brain. As a result, high stress can result in a relapse and is, in fact, one of the number one causes of relapse. If you can’t resolve your anger, you will experience stress and it will increase your risk of relapse.
Behavior patterns, often known as habits, can be extremely powerful predictors of behavior. You’ll know this if you’ve ever driven the same way to work for years and then tried to take a different route – or found yourself autopiloting past the liquor store on your way home. If you have a habit, you’re more likely to do something automatically, and that means turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol. If you’re used to responding to anger by drinking, you’re more likely to continue to do so, even if you have already had substance abuse treatment.

Essentially, there are a lot of ways that anger can contribute to relapse.

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How Does Anger Management Help?

You know how anger is detrimental to sobriety, but how does anger management help? Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix to anger problems or behaviors related to drinking around anger. Instead, you’ll have to work towards slow improvements that help you in the long-term. Let’s take a look:

Identifying triggers for anger – You’ll want to know what causes anger and why. In some cases, anger is a justified response to being treated unfairly. In other cases, anger is a response to stress, like traffic. For many people, you’ll want to spend time writing down when you get angry and what caused it for a few weeks before you can honestly say what triggers anger. Taking time to write that out will almost always be a part of anger management treatment as well.
Identifying what anger triggers – Once you know what triggers your anger, you’ll work to identify what anger triggers in you. For example, how do you behave? Do you lose control? Do you use drugs or alcohol to come down from anger? Do you come out of anger only to experience stress and anxiety? Identifying this will allow you to identify what you’re trying to improve on so it’s also a normal part of anger management.
Developing coping strategies – You’ll work with a counselor or therapist to specifically work on coping strategies that help you with your triggers and behaviors. For example, you can learn to take time-outs, to practice relaxation techniques, to respond in different ways, or to do other things first before responding to anger. For example, if you experience problems with anger while driving, you might be asked to take 30 seconds to concentrate on breathing, to sing a song, or to play a song and listen to it before you’re allowed to redirect attention back to anger. The idea is usually “acknowledge” “Okay I am angry”, “redirect” “Let me do something else for a few minutes” and “check in” “How do I feel now”?
Developing behaviors – It’s sometimes going to be important to develop a list of behaviors you are okay with and those you are not okay with. It’s important to be able to say to yourself “I am not comfortable responding in this way, so I am going to try to do something else”. Setting boundaries for yourself means you’ll have tools to help yourself realize when you’re going out of control, and that will help you to work towards being in control.
Setting goals – Finally, you’re always going to want to set specific and measurable goals for anger management. That can look like “I will practice breathing exercises every day”, “I will do a calming sport every day”, “I will take 30 seconds before I respond to anger”, “I will learn to stop responding to anger by shouting”, etc. If you can establish steps, you can work towards them, measure your progress, and see how it contributes to your goals.

Eventually, anger management means understanding yourself, what causes reactions, and what your reactions are. From there, you can more easily get therapy and counseling to help you modulate those behaviors. Having those emotional regulation tools will help you to stay in control, will reduce the stress you feel about anger, and may even help you to experience anger less. For example, if you experience anger about small things like someone cutting you off while driving, redirection and doing something else for a bit might save you anger for the rest of the day. That will pay off in improving your mood and decreasing your need to relax – because you’ll be less worked up. Of course, what you need to work on will depend on your situation, how you’re managing anger currently, and what’s causing problems. In some cases, you need better anger management skills and in others you need to step out of situations that are causing problems with anger. Your counselor will help you with that.

Anger management can help you maintain sobriety, especially if you have a habit of drinking after episodes of anger. The more stressed you feel after getting angry, the more that’s likely to be true. The good news is that anger and emotional management is more and more often a standard part of substance abuse treatment, so you’ll have more options to get anger management worked into your normal treatment and aftercare. Of course, you can also go to a program that’s completely separate from substance abuse, just keep in mind that it will touch less on specific overlaps with addiction and relapse. Good luck getting help.

Does Insurance Pay for Couples Drug Rehab?

a lovely couple in treatment at a drug and alcohol rehab center in riverside california

Does Insurance Pay for Couples Drug Rehab?

If you and your partner are struggling with substance abuse, rehab is an important step in recovery. Rehabilitation or substance abuse treatment services use therapy, counseling, and complementary skills like emotional management, building coping skills, stress management, and building healthy routines to help people overcome not just their substance abuse but also the underlying problems that resulted in it in the first place. If you’re with a partner who also has problems, getting couples drug rehab means you go together and often receive relationship and family therapy alongside drug addiction treatment to ensure you can rebuild your relationship on a healthy basis.

At the same time, drug addiction treatment is expensive. You want your insurance to pay for as much of it as-is possible. The question is, does your insurance pay for couple’s drug rehab? The answer is; that depends. We’ll go over the factors involved and how you can work to ensure you’re getting coverage for your program of choice – and what you need to do to ensure you get that coverage to begin with.

Your Insurance Covers Rehab

Your insurance plan is required to cover drug and alcohol abuse treatment. That’s the law under the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare). You are legally entitled to rehabilitation or substance abuse treatment care under Federal law. This means that your insurance plan covers rehab. However, coverage offered can vary significantly per plan.

The good news is that, no matter what, you’ll get some coverage for your drug rehab. If you take a quick look at your plan, you’ll also see roughly what is covered. Usually you can expect 40-90% coverage depending on plan, although many providers have caps and custom options for inpatient treatment. Increasingly, insurance plans are rolling rehab under general clinic visits or specialty care, which means it might not always be straightforward to find rehab or substance abuse treatment on your plan. If you’re not sure, you can always call your provider for straightforward answers. That will also help you figure out if you have to go through a provider-sponsored treatment plan or assessment before you can get help – as some plans do require this.

What Your Insurance Plan(s) Cover

Insurance plans cover different things depending on the plan. Often, that’s equitable to the physical health coverage you have. For example, with a bronze plan you can normally expect to cover about 60% of total costs yourself and with a platinum plan that drops down to about 10% of total costs. That should remain roughly equivalent no matter what kind of treatment you’re looking for. Therefore, many insurance plans won’t care too much what kind of treatment you start, providing you pay the associated costs.

You’ll want to look at:

What type of treatment is covered. E.g., inpatient or outpatient? Some plans require you complete an outpatient program before it will pay for an inpatient program
Some plans have deductibles per day some plans have deductibles per treatment type
Maximum coverage
Maximum covered
If deductibles change for inpatient vs outpatient care

For example, if you have a bronze plan, chances are very high that your insurance plan will attempt to cover the bare minimum. This means you might not get coverage for extras like couples’ rehab, unless that’s explicitly incorporated into mental health treatment and coverage.

You’ll also want to check whether:

You both have the same insurance plan. If you’re both on the same plan, it will be easier to align treatment and get joint coverage. If you’re not, it may be much harder to do so.
If you have different plans, your providers may work with a different network, which means it will be basically impossible to both get coverage from the same organization
Couples rehab may be treated as “joint” therapy or as individual therapy for two people and the difference will matter a lot depending on your rehab program

Essentially, if you have to align two separate insurance plans, you may have more trouble getting insurance coverage. However, if you’re on a family plan together, it may be much easier.

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What Your Doctor(s) Recommend

It’s always important to start out any visit to rehab with a trip to your doctor. This is important because you’ll need a doctor’s recommendation into treatment in order to get coverage for your rehab at all. Here, you’ll also want your doctor to specifically recommend couples rehab to you. This will greatly increase your chances that the rehab center covers the treatment without making a fuss.

Research why you want to go to couples’ rehab, what are the benefits, what do you get out of it over individual treatment
Check if treatment is broken down into rehab + mental health treatment or listed as one treatment. In most cases, with deductibles, a single treatment session is better. However, splitting them may make it easier to get coverage if you have a basic plan

In most cases, if you can present your doctor with a case as to why you want couples’ rehab, your doctor will be more than happy to recommend it. Those reasons can be as simple as:

We want to learn how to support each other in staying clean and sober
We want to undo the harm of substance abuse on our relationship and that means getting help together and getting family therapy alongside substance abuse treatment
It’s important that we have perspective on the treatment the other has received so that we can live with and work with that in a healthy way after treatment

Essentially, there are plenty of reasons why couples drug rehab can be beneficial over both of you going to separate programs or even both of you going to the same program with no extra support for couples. Talking to your consultant about it and then taking that discussion to your doctor can mean you very easily get a recommendation into that treatment from your doctor. That’s also important because, without that recommendation, your insurance may not offer coverage.

Will Everything Be Covered?

Almost no insurance provider will cover every part of rehab. If you’re going to an inpatient program, you can expect higher deductibles, limits on coverage, and reduced coverage. If you’re going to an outpatient program, you can expect relatively low deductibles and copays. However, in most cases, you can expect a maximum coverage of about 90% even with the best plans. Basic plans usually won’t cover more than about 40% of your treatment – although that does vary quite a bit. The best option is to look at your plan, see what it covers, and figure out what your best option is within your insurance plan and budget.

Confronting your mutual substance abuse can be difficult. Sharing the burden, learning how to be better together, and learning how to support each other in that can be a powerful part of recovery. Getting couples rehab can very much be the right choice for many of us. Hopefully, you can easily get that treatment without worrying too much about what your insurance provider covers. However, the fastest and easiest solution is always to call your insurance provider, ask what their options are, and take steps from there. Chances are very high that a significant portion of your couples therapy will be covered by your insurance. Good luck getting treatment.

Holistic Ways to Get to Sleep in Recovery Without Drugs

Holistic Ways to Get to Sleep in Recovery Without Drugs

Today, an estimated 48.7 million Americans aged 12 or older have a substance abuse problem or “addiction”. Further studies show that almost 1 in 10 Americans is in substance abuse recovery at any given time, even if it’s part of quitting drug or alcohol abuse themselves rather than seeking out treatment. For many of us, substance abuse recovery means significant problems with sleep. In fact, sleep disturbances including insomnia are often seen as a symptom of addiction, with many patients continuing to experience problems sleeping long after quitting.

While many people can benefit from sleeping pills and medicinal aids to get to sleep, most people struggling with substance abuse do not want to take on the risk. Sleeping pills are very often highly addictive and having a substance use disorder in remission puts you in the high-risk category for abuse and dependence on the pills. This means that for most people in recovery, looking into non-medical ways to improve sleep is critical to maintaining recovery.

Talk to Your Doctor

It’s important to keep in mind that you should always talk to your doctor about your mental health decisions and interventions. Your doctor may also be able to help you get into programs that help you with your goals of improving sleep without medicine. For example, they may refer you to treatment or therapy, they may help you get into free exercise or yoga programs, they might get you into support groups where you can talk to others and learn how others are handling similar issues. Most importantly, they can help you to track the issue over time, can help you to assess the severity of the problem, and can help you to respond appropriately to it so you can act if things start to get worse than you can manage on your own. Sleep deprivation does increase stress which does mean you’ll be at higher risk of relapse, so it’s important to balance your needs and make sure you’re getting the help you need.

Establish a Routine

Most of us have heard the adage that we should get up and go to bed at about the same time every day as much as possible. Why is that? If you have a bedtime routine, your body will be more prepared for sleep when you go to bed than if you don’t. For example, after getting into bed at the same time every day for 2 years, you’ll find that you have a lot easier time falling asleep at that time than you would if you went to bed at random times. Unfortunately, it takes a long time.

Routines are important for most people because once you adapt, you’ll have a rhythm to fall back to. Here, you want a rhythm where you:

Have a loosely defined bedtime. E.g., in bed by 10 PM most days
Have a loosely defined wakeup time: E.g., out of bed at 6 AM
Do the same things before bed to prepare yourself for bed. E.g., close the curtains, clean up a bit, read for half an hour, move to bed.

Having these kinds of rhythms will help, even if it can take a long time for that to happen. It’s also important to take 30-60 minutes out of your day as part of “wind down”, which means taking time to prepare for bed. Many people use this time to slowly set up clothing for the next day, to do small cleanup rituals, to water plants, or to read. Others prefer tasks like meditation that aren’t engaging, because the more you engage your brain, the more likely it is to keep you awake, especially at first. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed to do so the first few times you do it, so you’ll have to be prepared for that. Here, you’ll want to pick simple things, stick to them, and keep doing the same stuff. In addition, having a wind down ritual means you’ll be stepping away from screens and input like TV which does keep you awake – meaning that eventually you’ll have a healthier ritual that will support you sleeping.

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Exercise During the Day

Exercise is well known for helping people wake up and stay alert but did you know it can also help you sleep? The reasons are two-fold. The first is that the more physically tired you are, the more likely you are to be able to fall asleep easily when you go to bed. That’s a simple matter of having physically tired muscles. That sensation of physical tiredness will help you sleep. The second is that exercise produces neurotransmitter and hormone production, both of which can help to reduce anxiety, can help to reduce racing thoughts, and can help to increase feelings of calm, which will also help you sleep. Exercise does boost energy for about 2-3 hours after you do it. This means it’s generally better to exercise either in the morning, so you’re alert and refreshed for work or immediately after work, so you’re alert and refreshed for your time off.

Watch What You Eat and Drink

Most people know that you shouldn’t have caffeine before bed. In fact, for most people, stopping caffeine intake at around 3 PM or sooner or limiting caffeinated beverages to 1-2 per day is a smart plan for quality of sleep.

At the same time, did you know that simple things like snacking, having a lot of sugar, or consuming carbs at night can also keep you awake? Some dieticians actually suggest moving your biggest meal to the middle of the day, so you have your largest source of energy at a point in time when you’ll actually use it. Then, you can switch to a smaller meal later in the day, so you have less energy by the time you want to go to bed.

Make Sure You’re Awake Enough During the Day

Most of us are aware of the phenomenon where we go through the day in a tired haze and then suddenly get home and go to bed and are awake. Preventing this will help you sleep better. Here, you can use a series of techniques to help you be more awake during the day so you are more tired by the time you go to bed.

Bright light is one of the most important. Here, you make sure you have bright light in your morning routine and your home environment. That could mean going outside to have your morning cup of coffee. It can also mean making sure the lighting in your office or workspace is bright and full spectrum.

You’ll also want to use tactics like eating a good meal early so you have more energy, getting a small amount of exercise in as early as you can (E.g., take a 20-minute walk to start your day) and then paying attention to where you have energy dips and using walks or other strategies to compensate. The more you stay awake during the day, the more you’ll be capable of falling asleep when you get to bed.

Get Treatment

It’s important to take sleeping problems to a medical professional so you can get therapy and treatment. Treatment might mean you get counseling and support while you wait for your body to heal from substance abuse. It might also mean getting therapy for anxiety and managing thoughts that keep you awake. It might also mean getting behavioral help with things like routine, going to bed on time, managing habits, exercising, etc.

Millions of Americans have sleep problems. They overlap so much with substance abuse and substance abuse recovery that insomnia is considered a symptom of substance abuse. Getting that under control and getting back to a healthy sleep routine can take time and you may eventually need temporary sleeping aids. Hopefully, you can make enough progress with holistic methods that you don’t need them, but it’s still important to talk to your doctor and get the ongoing support you need as you work to build routines and support for a good night’s sleep.

Supporting a Loved One Coming Home from Addiction Treatment

If your loved one is in treatment, they’re taking the steps to change their life for the better. Whether that’s after a long and hard battle to get them there or a sudden decision on their part doesn’t matter. Chances are, you want to support them and to provide the kind of help and support they need to continue to get better at home. That can mean taking steps to get therapy yourself, to change how you talk about and see substance use disorder, and to provide the kind of support they need.

It’s natural that you want to help. Chances are, offering support will also make a lot of difference to your loved one and how they feel coming out of addiction treatment. At the same time, they need to be in charge of their recovery and that means they set the pace. You can’t decide things for anyone, instead, you can only provide the emotional support they need to keep moving forward. Sometimes that will be difficult, especially if your loved one is struggling, appears to be backsliding, or is too caught up in dealing with their own problems to notice the help.

Addiction Treatment Doesn’t Mean Complete Recovery

In an ideal world, your loved one would go to treatment and come back completely recovered, with no more substance use disorder. Unfortunately, nothing ever works that way. Even if you were to send your loved one off for surgery for a broken bone, they’d still have months of recovery to follow – and you’d have to support them as they struggle through healing. Addiction treatment is the same, as you’ll have someone who’s been handed tools and a means of changing their life, but who still has to figure out how to apply that and if that application fits their life or if they need further support.

They will still experience cravings, they will have mood swings, they will revert to behaviors from addiction, they may even relapse a few times. The important thing is that they always stop and recognize negative things and get back on track, because healing is very rarely linear. If you need extra help with that, going to support groups like Al-Anon can actually help a great deal.

It’s also important to keep in mind that nothing is bringing the “old” them back. Most of us send our loved ones off to treatment expecting to get the “them” they were before addiction happened back. That’s never going to happen, and setting expectations for it will only lead to disappointment. You’re going to have to get to know your loved one as they are now, with the impact of everything that’s happened since they started using, with the impact of substances on their brain, and with the impacts of therapy and treatment. They won’t be the same as before – but chances are, you’ll like the new version of them just as much as you did the old one.

Understanding what Support Looks Like

It’s also important to consider what supporting your loved one actually looks like. That means stepping back and looking at which factor. In most cases, that means:

Having the ability to make informed decisions to support physical and emotional well-being
Having a stable and safe place to live
Having a meaningful and independent life with resources to participate in society
Having support, love, friendship, and family through relationships and social networks

You can often help with that in several ways. For example, you can help by listening, by providing a stable place to live, by offering respect, and by continuing to engage with them even when they are struggling. Support can look different depending on your relationship and for example, will take dramatically different forms depending on whether your loved one is living with you or not after treatment.

Committing to Healing Relationships

It’s important to keep in mind that substance use disorders often very significantly damage relationships. Often, you will build patterns of negative behavior and responses that can carry over, even after your loved one is in recovery. This means you may have to deal with your own negative emotions and being bitter, angry, or disappointed. Your loved one is not going to tackle those right away and may not even realize it has to be done. Putting the focus on their recovery first and working to build a relationship so you have the grounds to talk about the past is an important part of commitment.

It’s not about you, their focus on their recovery should be the most important thing for the first months out of recovery
It’s critical to set healthy boundaries and to say no when you cannot or do not want to do something or be involved with it
Setting guidelines on stepping out of situations where either of you is behaving or responding in a negative fashion is important.
Deciding to actively acknowledge and work around past behavior and patterns will be important, especially if you find yourself easily fighting, dismissing each other, etc.

Setting good boundaries can also help you to ensure that you behave in a healthy manner around your loved one. E.g., by ensuring that you aren’t enabling them or pushing them back into a pattern of substance abuse.

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Create a Safe and Welcoming Environment

It’s important that you take steps to create a safe and welcoming environment for your loved one. That means:

Practicing acceptance of who they are now, with all faults and problems
Accepting that they aren’t recovered and are instead in recovery
Making space for mental health problems
Accepting that they will not be fixing your relationship right away
Accepting that substance use disorders are a behavioral disorder or an illness and not a personal choice

It also means taking steps to make your loved one feel like they are accepted, welcome, and wanted. That means:

Treating your loved one like a member of the family even when they can’t contribute to the family
Involve them in plans, events, etc.
Plan around their obligations and needs. E.g., having parties that are alcohol-free, taking their therapy or 12-step obligations into account when making plans, etc. Simple things like going “We can’t go out to dinner at Thursday at 5 PM because X has their 12-step meeting then, why don’t we do it Wednesday instead?” can make a lot of difference to people feeling like their needs are being taken into account.

A history of substance use disorder can mean there’s a history of avoidance, negative emotions, and not including people in plans. Changing that is one of the easiest ways to show that you accept they are trying and that they are part of the family.

Talk and Listen

Going into recovery and treatment often means that you’re basing your entire life around treatment. At the same time, your loved one is changing as a person. They’re learning new things, picking up new skills, picking up new hobbies, and making new friends. They’re in a state of enforced change and that can be difficult and traumatic. Making space to talk about that, about what they are learning, about what they are doing, about life goals, etc., is more important than talking about addiction, cravings, and getting better. Why? It makes your loved one feel supported, like you see that they are trying, and that you acknowledge they are a person beyond their substance use disorder and recovery from it.

Seek Out Family Therapy

In many cases, it’s going to be important to go to therapy and treatment yourself. That’s either by yourself or with your loved one. Family therapy can help you to improve your relationships, to undo old patterns, and to build new behavioral patterns with your loved one. It can also allow you to get support in figuring out how to be there for your loved one. That also often means having third-party insight into what your loved one is saying and what that means for you and for your family.

Family therapy can help you to work on healing relationships, to understand how your negative behavior patterns impact each other, and to see your relationship from their perspective as well as your own.

Building a Relationship

Moving forward from addiction means putting in a lot of work. It means accepting your loved one for who they are and as imperfect. It also means giving them autonomy, freedom, and privacy to make their own decisions. That means building trust and rebuilding a relationship based on who they are now. That can be difficult, especially if the past hasn’t given you the grounds to do so, but will give you a baseline to have a healthy and positive relationship with your loved one moving forward.

Rehab or addiction treatment gives your loved one the tools to move forward and to fix their life. It’s what they do with it as they leave rehab that counts. The most important thing you can do to support that is to make them feel loved, like part of the family, and like they are being seen for the effort they are putting in.

How to Stay Clean and Sober Over the Summer

sober friends on road trip during summer

How to Stay Clean and Sober Over the Summer

If you’re in early recovery, you know that recovery is a journey, you have to keep working for it. That can seem intimidating around things and events where you’d normally party or drink and use drugs or alcohol. For many of us, summer is about vacations, time off from school and work, and getting to party. For some of us, that can be intensely triggering. In other cases, it can mean facing the prospect of a “boring” summer, without the usual outlets of getting to let go and party.

The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do to have a great summer without drugs and alcohol. However, you might have to put in time to plan that summer. You might have to figure out what you can do, explore fun things to do, and look into ways you can feel social, get excitement, and enjoy being around others without drugs and alcohol. The closer you are to having been in recovery, the harder that might be. However, you can take steps that will ensure you stay clean and sober over the summer and hopefully enjoy yourself as well.

Mindset is Everything

It’s interesting how much of relapse is about mindset. For many of us, relapse is forwarded by finding ourselves reminiscing about the “good times” and getting to let loose, to party, to feel good. The minute you find yourself thinking in that way, it’s time to stop and reevaluate your mindset.

After all, it may be easier to let go of your inhibitions and go dancing or sing karaoke after a few drinks, but how much of it do you remember? How much of what is said is genuinely you? Do you get to make genuine connections with others? And what about the morning after when you wake up tired, dehydrated, and feeling bad? What about that? Most of us conveniently forget that drug and alcohol binges come with at least twice that amount of time of feeling bad. Correcting yourself by thinking about those bad times, thinking about throwing up, needing friends to get you home, passing out in places, being uncomfortable, having a headache – that’s all important too.

Glamorizing drugs and alcohol as part of your lifestyle is not going to get you a fun summer. However, you can actively confront your mindset when you do and make sure you remember the bad times as well.

And, having a summer without those bad times probably sounds pretty good right?

Make Sure You Understand Yourself

It’s important to know what triggers you. Chances are, if you’ve been going to therapy or addiction treatment, you’re already working on that. Understanding what is likely to trigger you means you can better plan having support networks around you when those triggers occur. You can also think about avoiding those triggers.

For most people, triggers look like:

Being around drugs or alcohol
Seeing people you used with
Being put in situations of stress
Being in situations that would previously have resulted in drinking or using
Being at parties or around others using
Being in certain environments like a beach, a bar, etc., that you might associate with getting drunk or using

For example, if you used to go to a resort in Mexico to get drunk and high over the summer, you probably don’t want to go to a beach in Mexico this summer. That will probably trigger you a great deal, and it will be difficult to avoid being surrounded by people who are heavily drinking.

Understanding your triggers means you can take steps to plan your vacation around those triggers and to have support when you can’t avoid those things. E.g., you’re going on a city trip and you know you can’t avoid bars, so you bring a sober friend you can talk to so you know you’ll get support even if you’re feeling cravings.

Here, it’s also a good idea to plan in how to react to cravings. That means figuring out how to take 15 minutes to do something with your hands, talk to a friend, solve a Rubik’s cube,

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Plan Sober Fun

Knowing what to avoid is only half the battle. You also have to know what you think is fun, what you can do for fun, and where you’ll find enjoyment. You still want your summer to be enjoyable, relaxing, and entertaining. You still want to feel like you’ve had a good time. That often means planning in sober fun. What is “sober fun”? That depends on you and what you like. For most people, “fun” works out to:

Social time where you get to engage with others, including people you know and strangers
Challenge
Games
Feeling like you’re contributing or making a difference
Adrenaline

Not everyone will like all of these things. However, most people like at least some of them. You can work that out to:

Sober parties and social outings, like dance classes, where you get to engage with others without alcohol. Don’t be afraid to throw your own parties. But, keep in mind there are sober events in most areas.
Physical activities, especially group activities. Think dancing, skating, bouldering, and other similar activities. Swimming might be less fun because it’s less social on average unless you’re playing water polo. Hiking is a great choice whether you’re traveling or staying home.
Challenging activities, like bouldering, escape rooms, chess, or board games, are a great option.
You’ll still want to feel excitement, so do things that are exciting. That can mean taking spontaneous trips, going on rollercoasters or water slides, going skydiving, or asking people to dance. The point is that you want to feel excitement because that’s an important part of having fun.
Volunteering, helping out with friends, and contributing to your self-help group or family are also an important part of having fun. Especially as you move further into recovery, you’ll find that fun and enjoyment is more about building moments that are enjoyable and creating a life that is worth living, and that means giving back. You’ll find that volunteering is extremely rewarding, if not “fun” in the most classic sense.

If you’re traveling, it’s also important to make time to experience food, culture, and sights. That means hiking, eating, local music, and city trips as part of your planned fun.

Don’t Give Up Self Care Routines

Most of us learn significant self-care routines as part of rehab. That means you’ll have a routine of wake up at a specific time, eat something healthy, work out, clean a bit, do your therapy or maintenance homework, go about your day, come home, eat something healthy, clean up, have a bedtime routine, go to bed at about the same time every night. The order of that can differ a lot but all of those elements should be in it.

Here, it’s important that you stick to that routine as you go about your summer. It doesn’t matter that you might not be going to college or to work, you might be in a different location, etc., but you should still maintain the self-care routines. That normally means that you should exercise about 80% of days, you should eat healthy meals about 80% of the time, and you should go to bed at the same time about 80% of the time. It’s okay to give that up for 2-3 days of short vacation, but other than that, you should stick to your routines so you can maintain your self-care and your mental health.

If you think you’re struggling or you’re not sure about getting through the summer clean and sober, it’s always a good idea to ask for extra help. That can mean signing up for a self-help group at your destination, it can mean signing up for telehealth therapy, it can mean going into treatment over the summer. It’s important that you ask for the help you need so you have the support you need to get through your summer clean and sober.

7 Characteristics of a Good Drug and Alcohol Rehab

mental health expert at a drug and alcohol rehab

7 Characteristics of a Good Drug and Alcohol Rehab

If you or a loved one is struggling with a substance use disorder, getting help and going to rehab is the best way to get started turning your life around. Unfortunately, even choosing a rehab center can be a challenge. In 2022, there were 17,353 registered substance use disorder treatment facilities in the United States. This means you’ll have to navigate a large number of options, look at different treatment methods, and put in work to find the treatment center that works for you.

Those facilities also vary considerably in treatment options, luxury, treatment type, and treatment delivery. For example, you can go to a simple outpatient program where you visit the clinic daily. You can also go to a high-end luxury resort that looks and feels like a vacation with therapy on top. There’s also a large range of options in between, which is the best fit for most people. Whatever you go to, the following 7 characteristics of a good drug and alcohol rehab are crucial for your treatment.

1. They Accept Your Insurance

Substance abuse treatment can be extremely expensive, especially if you’re going to an inpatient treatment facility. Having the surety that your program is covered by your insurance allows you to get the help you need without adding on extra financial stress. In addition, if your treatment facility accepts insurance, that means it’s offering medically recognized treatment, has gone through the process of being locally licensed and certified, and meets the standards for quality set by whatever region it is in.

Of course, that’s not always the case. Some insurance programs simply won’t cover inpatient care. Others require that you go to outpatient care first and only cover inpatient care if you relapse after an outpatient program. So, your rehab center not being covered by your insurance provider may be about policy rather than about the rehab facility being part of an established medical network. However, in general, it’s best to work with rehab centers that work with medical providers, that are part of your network, and that can share data and medical files to your doctor and vice-versa, so you get the best possible care.

2. The Facility and Staff are Licensed

It’s important to check who you are working with and who is providing treatment as part of your rehab program. For example, are you working with registered nurses for your detox program? Are counselors licensed? Is there a psychologist or psychiatrist on the team? How much interaction will you have with those people?

Depending on the drug and alcohol rehab team, you’re likely to work with a mix of counselor, nurses, and doctors. You’ll want to see what staff are like and how qualified they. The best programs largely rely on skilled specialist counselors with therapists and doctors to back up those programs, so you get a mix of treatment.

3. The Facility Offers Personalized Treatment

Whether it’s called personalization, trauma-informed care, or a program that’s adjusted to your needs as you move through it, you want to look for personalization. This means that the facility adapts your treatment to you and your needs. This is important because many people going into addiction treatment struggle with unique problems like trauma, co-occurring mental health disorders, and behavioral problems. If you’re having trouble motivating yourself to believe in therapy, therapy should adapt to offer you a motivational program. If you’re struggling to commit to treatment because you’re feeling suicidal, therapy should adapt to address that first.

Personalized treatment means you get the care you need, when you need it, instead of being forced through a cookie-cutter program. That will improve your outcome and will ensure you get the support you need as you need it. However, it can also mean programs last much longer, as you might have to delay treatment to address other symptoms or slow down treatment to your pace.

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4. Low Patient to Staff Ratios

The more one-on-one time you get with staff and counselors, the more value you’ll get from the treatment center. Of course, you also benefit a great deal from interacting with your peers and from group therapy. That’s why basically every treatment option incorporates group therapy as a baseline. It’s good for you to see and experience how others are going through and have gone through addiction, it’s good for you to understand your peers, and it’s good for you to be able to see which aspects of your personality and behavior are you and which are “just” addiction. At the same time, the best drug and alcohol rehab centers maintain a low staff to patient ratio.

In general, ratings are:

14+ patients per staff member – High
4-14 patients per staff member – Average
4 or less patients per staff member – Low

It’s also important to keep in mind that the lower staff to patient ratios are, the more you’ll pay for treatment. However, you’ll also get more direct attention, more personalization, and more insight into your own personal needs. And, that can be extremely valuable, whether you’re going to an inpatient or an outpatient program.

5. Diverse Treatment Options

Most people are aware that there are dozens of ways to treat substance use disorders. Here, you want to look for a program that uses multiple treatment options so that they can adapt your treatment and your program to your needs. For example, if your treatment center is only offering counseling, it might not be a great resource for you.

A good mix of treatment options looks like:

Diverse behavioral therapies like CBT, DBT, and EMDR
Counseling
Group Therapy
Motivational Therapies like ACT
Complementary therapies like music therapy, nutritional therapy
Exercise and fitness programs

Essentially, you want a program that uses a mix of resources, so it can offer you what you need, when you need it.

6. Aftercare Programs

The dream is that you go through rehab and you walk out the other side, a new person, ready to recover. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Most people end up needing aftercare including ongoing therapy and counseling. Sometimes that’s to give you the support you need to stay clean and sober. In other cases, it’s to give you the support you need to go back to recovery after a relapse. However, any good rehab program will realize that you need this aftercare. Aftercare can mean sober homes, ongoing support and counseling, telehealth support, fast-track readmission in case of a relapse, an outpatient program, checkups and key dates, etc. The important thing is that it’s there, that you discuss with your rehab center what you need and why, and that you have the tools to get that ongoing support.

7. Support for Co-occurring Disorders

More than half of all people with a substance use disorder also have a co-occurring mental health disorder. Many of those include disorders that require medication and treatment. You need to ensure that your facility has the tools to help you manage co-occurring disorders, to help you treat the symptoms of substance use disorders around mental health disorders, and that address how substance use disorders impact your vulnerability to substance abuse and to relapse.

There’s a lot that goes into choosing a drug and alcohol rehab program. Often, you should start by talking to your doctor, decide what you’re looking for, and then figure out where you’re looking for treatment. From there, it’s easier to narrow down treatment options – and you may find that there are only a few that meet the criteria you’re looking for. Hopefully, you can find a great rehab center that meets your needs and helps you take the next step towards recovery.