Category: Relapse Prevention

The Many Triggers that Precede Relapse

If you’re moving into recovery, you know that relapse is an ongoing threat to your health and your progress. Unfortunately, the risk of that will always be a problem, which is why many people in recovery continue to get help, go to aftercare, and continue to seek out both nonprofessional (self-help) and professional (counseling, therapy, sober homes, etc.) help. While it’s important to ensure that you have ongoing care and resources to reach out to in case something goes wrong, it’s also important to understand what can cause a relapse, how to recognize an impending relapse, and how to reach out for help.

That often starts out with understanding your triggers. Here, it’s important to keep in mind that triggers are unique and personal. Yours might be very different from what’s on this list. Therefore, managing yourself and your recovery will almost always include some amount of self-awareness, logging when you feel cravings, and figuring out what makes you crave drugs or alcohol. You can work on that with a counselor or therapist. However, many people experience some variation of the following triggers, which may help you to recognize and react to your own.

What Are Triggers?

Triggers are incidents which push your brain into a response to use drugs or alcohol. In some cases, the trigger is to directly drink or use. In other cases, the trigger is something that sets off a chain reaction that eventually results in relapse.

Triggers are things that most people think of as negative. For example, we’re all used to hearing about triggers for PTSD, where traffic jams can cause someone to relive the experience of a car accident or how fireworks may cause a veteran to relive an experience of gunfire or bombing. Yet, triggers can also come from positive events. A promotion may trigger you into feeling like you should get to celebrate and have a break and that might end up in a relapse.

It’s also important to keep in mind that triggers don’t have to kick off an immediate reaction. You could experience something that sets things in motion, resulting in a relapse in 2 months. However, the trigger remains the thing that kicked it off. Learning to recognize those triggers and cope with them in healthy fashions will help you prevent the relapse.

Triggers can be anything. They also vary per person. The things that cause you to drink or use won’t be the things that cause your peers to drink or use. However, there will be overlaps.

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What Are Some Common Relapse Triggers?

There are hundreds of things that can count as “triggers”. In fact, there’s no real limit on them. However, the following items include some of the most common triggers that precede a relapse.

1. Stress

Stress is the most common relapse trigger. It’s also one of the most common triggers for addiction. This means that stress management should be your number one priority in recovery. If you feel like you have to escape from life, you’re setting yourself up for a relapse. Learning stress management strategies, taking stress to directly reduce stress in your life, and proactively learning how to handle situations and incidents in a manner that mitigates stress will all help you to stay clean and sober. Taking steps might mean stepping to a less stressful job, trying to reduce commute, hiring a babysitter, working to live in a quieter area, getting rid of tasks that cause you a lot of stress, learning mindfulness or meditation techniques, improving how you dela with situations, and much more. The important thing is that you take active steps to reduce stress so that you don’t find yourself triggered into drinking or using. Here, talking to your doctor will be an important step.

2. Feeling Bad

Feelings of negatively such as anger, grief, sadness, loneliness, and boredom are all triggers for substance abuse. In fact, if it makes you feel like you want to get away from it, it’s probably a trigger for you. That’s especially true while you’re in recovery, because you’ve already trained your brain that drinking or drugs is a way out of whatever you’re feeling. If you feel bad for example because of a breakup, difficulties at work, a traumatic event, or even just feel lonely and sad, you’ll probably feel a lot of internal pressure to use. And, that can mean that you will be triggered to relapse because you’ll have pushed the buttons that lead to drinking or using again – providing you don’t find healthier coping mechanisms in the meantime. The bad news is that negative emotions are an unavoidable part of life. You’re going to want to start working on healthy ways to manage and cope with negative emotions, and the sooner you do it, the easier staying in recovery will be.

3. Feeling Good

It’s unfair that feeling good can also be a trigger, but it can be. Here, many of us associate good times with substance abuse. That can mean you are triggered into using by good times. For example, you get married, you get a promotion, a new car. What do you want to do? You want to celebrate. And, what do you associate with celebrating? Substance abuse. Being aware that this is a risk can help you to mitigate it. However, you’ll also want to make sure you have people to talk to, that you have a good idea of how to have fun without relapsing, and that you can figure out how to feel like you’ve had a party and an outlet without substance abuse.

4. Re-exposure

The most common trigger that most people run into is exposure. However, that can be very multifaceted. For example, re-exposure can mean:

To Substances – If you’re not used to being around a substance you might find that even being able to smell it is a trigger. People with alcohol problems can relapse after smelling old beer in a cup. For this reason, most people eventually want to try to expose themselves to substances to ensure they can stay in control and that they learn to cope with cravings under the supervision of a therapist or counselor. If you do that, it should be after discussion and agreement with your therapist. However, sudden exposure to a substance can mean you end up facing unexpectedly strong cravings, don’t even think before using the substance, or otherwise just react and end up relapsing. Habit can take over but so can strong cravings.
Locations – You might be surprised to walk into a room where you used to get high or drunk and find that you’re experiencing cravings or worse just reacting without thinking but it’s a common experience. It’s important to watch yourself around places you used to abuse substances in, places you used to buy substances in, and places where you used to hide substances. For example, most people are aware that a liquor store is going to be a problem if they have an issue with alcohol. Most people don’t realize that taking the route home from work past the liquor store can trigger an automatic reaction to park their car in the lot and get out. Those kinds of automatic reactions can be surprising, and they can result in relapse because you’re just following habits without thinking.
People – People can be triggering in multiple ways. For example, if you used to abuse substances with them. Or, if they resulted in you using to begin with. People who caused trauma that resulted in escapism, people who were around a lot when you were using, and people who cause a lot of stress can all result in a triggering experience. Here, you’re typically better off working towards exposure therapy and learning to cope with these triggers, because you can’t always avoid people.

In every case, re-exposure can put you at risk of a relapse.

Getting Help

Moving into recovery means dealing with yourself, your cravings, and your triggers. It means working to understand yourself, what makes you tick, and what makes you want to escape. It means talking to addiction treatment professionals and trying to work towards finding healthy coping mechanisms. And, it means having accountability so you can check in, have people help you when things are starting to go badly, and get support. Recovery is often not a straightforward path, you may have setbacks, you may need additional treatment, and you might slip up. It’s important that you have the support system in place to ensure you can get that help when you need it.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our alcohol rehab, detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.

How Effective is Suboxone for Fentanyl Treatment?

Suboxone is an FDA-approved prescription drug most commonly used to help people maintain abstinence from opioid drugs. As a result, suboxone is one of the most prescribed medications for Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) programs. It’s also listed as a life-saving drug by the World Health Administration as an essential drug. At the same time, there’s a lot of controversy around Suboxone – both for use with opioids and also for extra strong opioids such as fentanyl.

Here, many people are concerned that they’re replacing one drug with another. Others are concerned that Suboxone also has a withdrawal period. And, in some cases, individuals are concerned about the potential of precipitated withdrawal, which means that you suddenly go into withdrawal from a very strong drug, which can result in hospitalization. At the same time, Suboxone is considered one of the most important drugs for helping people maintain recovery – so you don’t run the risk of overdose when you go back to fentanyl. What are the factors that impact this? And, how effective is it?

What is Suboxone?

Suboxone is an FDA-approved combination drug composed of Buprenorphine and Naloxone. It’s typically orally administrated and is primarily used in maintenance programs to help individuals stay clean during recovery from opioid use disorder. The drug has been shown to greatly improve outcomes for individuals by preventing relapse, reducing cravings, and reducing the length and severity of the detox phase. It’s also comprised of two of the most important drugs in opioid use disorder treatment:

Buprenorphine – Buprenorphine is an opioid drug with a light side effect profile and a lower addiction profile than those used recreationally. In light doses, buprenorphine causes no euphoria or sedation, meaning that it doesn’t have a driver for individuals to abuse it recreationally. However, it does bind with the same opioid receptors in the body and brain as fentanyl, meaning that while you’re taking it, you don’t experience physical cravings and you don’t go into withdrawal. This drug is sold on its own as Subutex. Here, it’s an important and lief-saving drug. However, it still carries the potential of abuse as buprenorphine can cause euphoria in high doses and when injected.
Naloxone – Suboxone also contains Naloxone, which is known as a the opioid overdose withdrawal reversal drug. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist which causes opioids to stop binding with receptors in the brain. This can pull individuals out of an overdose. It can also cause sudden onset withdrawal which means that someone taking Naloxone suddenly will almost certainly require hospital care and treatment. However, it’s poorly digested orally. This means that while you are taking the Suboxone orally or according to prescription, it won’t have an effect. However, if you take more than the prescribed dose or attempt to inject it, the Naloxone will take effect – and you will go into withdrawal.

In short, Suboxone is buprenorphine, an opioid drug with an anti-abuse mechanism built in. That makes it safer for people to take home and use on their own, even during early stages of addiction.

When taking it, you should mostly feel normal, but without cravings or withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting opioid drugs like fentanyl.

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Is Suboxone Effective?

Suboxone is one of the most-recommended drugs for medication assisted treatment. That recommendation comes from the fact that it works, it has a very low risk of abuse, and the safety mechanism of Naloxone means that patients can more easily use it unsupervised at home. That allows more freedom to individuals to live their lives rather than going to a doctor’s office or clinic every day for a dose of buprenorphine.

Suboxone is also fully FDA approved. It’s consistently pointed to as greatly improving outcomes in opioid use disorder treatment. However, it is not a treatment on its own. Suboxone does not help you overcome behavioral addiction. Instead, it reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms, allowing you to go about living your normal life while getting treatment for substance use disorder. Without dealing with cravings, you’re more likely to be able to get through treatment without risking relapse and potential overdose on fentanyl. This means it greatly reduces risks of accidental death while also reducing risk of relapse to begin with. At the same time, you still need behavioral therapy to recover from a behavioral substance use disorder. For this reason, any substance use disorder treatment program offering medication assistance with Suboxone will pair it with therapy and counseling.

Overall, Suboxone is a very safe and effective drug that can function as a crutch while you learn the skills to stay clean. It reduces the impact of quitting right away, reduces cravings, and lowers the threshold to staying clean. As a result, people who use it are significantly more likely to stay in recovery than those who are not in a MAT program.

What’s are the Concerns of Using Suboxone with Fentanyl?

Fentanyl is widely known as one of the strongest opioid drugs on the market. It’s also increasingly finding its way into dozens of drugs, including faux prescription pills, drugs sold as heroin, and even directly sold as fentanyl. At 10,000 times the strength of morphine, fentanyl is extremely strong and has a very high risk of overdose and accidental drug death. In fact, more than 74% of opioid drug deaths are linked to fentanyl. When you use Naloxone to treat fentanyl overdose, it causes significant and immediate withdrawal symptoms which can require medical attention. This is known as precipitated withdrawal. Persons taking suboxone run a risk of precipitated withdrawal as well. However, according to a study published in 2023, about 1% of fentanyl users taking suboxone will go through precipitated withdrawal. This means that it is important to start using suboxone in a clinic if you’re a fentanyl user. However, risks are extremely low.

In other cases, people are concerned about using one opioid to recover from another. However, buprenorphine has an extremely low addiction profile. This means it’s very unlikely that you become addicted to the drug. You will become dependent on the drug, which means you’ll have to taper off it in order to quit. However, it also means you can safely quit opioids, with low risks of strong withdrawal symptoms, and low risk of relapse. As a result, Suboxone is associated with improved recovery rates, reduced risk of death, and decreased cost of treatment.

Seeking Out Medication Assisted Treatment

If you or a loved one is struggling with substance abuse, it’s important to look into getting help. If that substance is fentanyl, withdrawal and recovery are difficult and can be dangerous. Medication assisted programs with Suboxone can greatly reduce those risks. However, it’s important to discuss your options with your doctor and your rehab facility. Both should help you to look at your options, associated risks, and how those risks come into play for your recovery, your long-term health, and your short-term treatment. Chances are very high that you’ll be recommended into a tapering program to reduce fentanyl usage or directly into a detox clinic where you can start suboxone under medical supervision and then directly into a behavioral mental health treatment program.

Eventually, the right treatment for you depends on your mental health, your addiction, and what you want for yourself. Suboxone can be life-saving, it can reduce risks, and it can help you to stay in recovery. Either way, good luck getting treatment.

How to Take Care of a Pet When You Are Newly Sober

Woman Taking Care of her Pet after recovery

How to Take Care of a Pet When You Are Newly Sober

If you’re just out of recovery and you have to take care of a pet, it can mean extra challenge. In fact, if you don’t yet own a pet, most recovery groups will recommend waiting to get one. Here, recovery groups often start individuals out on buying a plant and keeping that alive first. Once you’ve proven you can do that, you can start with pets. But, if you already have a pet, you’ll have to jump right into taking care of and managing the life that is in your care. That can be a massive responsibility.

The good news is that there are plenty of strategies you can use to ensure you’re providing good care for the animals in your life – even when you’re newly sober. These tips will help you make the right decisions and the right calls.

Take Your Pet to Rehab with You

An increasingly large number of rehab and treatment centers will offer pet care during recovery treatment. This means that you can simply bring your pet with you and continue offering it care while you work on yourself. That’s often relatively easy as you can keep a cat in a room with you, birds in cages, and rehab often involves hiking and plenty of time to walk, so dogs can also get exercise.

Of course, bringing a pet to rehab with you will reduce the number of rehab centers you can choose from. On the other hand, it means that caring for your pet is part of your schedule from day one. It is good to be able to focus on yourself first and foremost during recovery. However, rehab offers plenty of time for pet care, which means this can be a great option.

Ask for Help When You Need It

You won’t always have the headspace or the time to care for your pet. It’s important that you learn to reach out and ask for help when you need it. That might mean having a pet sitter. It might also mean having someone come over to help you with cleaning a litter box or cages when you notice you’re having trouble keeping up. If you treat early sobriety like being in recovery from being sick or like having a depression diagnosis, you’ll understand that you will have good and bad days. Some days you will need help. That may mean having someone on call to help you with your pet so that you know your pet gets the care it needs. Asking for that help can be hard because it can make you feel like you’re not being enough for a pet, but it’s important to recognize that you are sick and you do need help sometimes. If you can’t do that, then your pet may actually go without because you are in recovery and you won’t always be healthy enough (mentally or physically) to offer the care your pet needs.

Work Pet Care into Your Routines

Moving into recovery often means building good routines into your life. That means good food, exercise, and taking care of your home and space. It’s important that your pet be part of those routines from day one. For example, if you have a dog, you can make multiple long walks a day your exercise routine. That means you and your pet get the care you need. You can also work cleaning up after your pet into your morning routine. For example, taking 10 minutes before and after bed to check food and water, to clean up messes, etc., can be extremely good for your pet. Of course, any pet will also need extra time for play and for enrichment, which means setting that time aside. But, providing you make it part of your routine, you’ll have a better idea of when to do it and how to do it. Creating that routine will also help you to maintain good pet care even when you are having a bad day and are having a hard time.

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Have Someone Check in on You

Keeping up with your mental health and your recovery can be difficult. It’s important that you have someone looking in on you. That means two things. The first is social accountability. Here, you know someone is checking in on you so you have external motivation to do something that should be done. That can be more helpful than most people realize. For example, if you’ve ever suddenly had the motivation to clean right before guests show up, you’ve experienced social accountability. It can be surprisingly powerful, even for things you want to do like taking care of your pet.

In addition, having someone check in on you can help you to notice sooner when you start to do badly. You might be struggling but someone will realize it and may help you to break out of it before things go bad. And, if they can’t, they will likely be able to help you take care of your pet so your pet does not lose the added care. That will be better for your pet and its wellbeing either way. Of course, that does mean having a self-help group, having people visit you, having that check-in, and that can be hard to ask for and hard to maintain.

Talk to Your Therapist

You might not be ready to take care of a pet. It’s important to accept that. It’s also important to accept that if you can’t take care of your pet right now, you should be getting help. That help might mean having someone drop by daily to help you with pet care. It might also mean having your pet live with a friend or family member for a bit while you work to recover your physical and mental health. Recovering from a substance use disorder is a lot. You might need help. You might have ups and downs. Your bad days might be so bad you cannot or can barely take care of yourself. Having a pet at the same time means taking on responsibility you might not be ready for. That means talking to your therapist, getting help, and figuring out what you’re capable of.

It’s always a good idea to wait with getting a pet if you can. However, pets can help with loneliness, they can help you to feel loved, they can give you a good baseline for self-care, and they can provide external motivation for doing things. On the other hand, if you wait till you’re further into recovery, you’ll be in better shape to ensure your pet has the care and emotional stability from its caretaker that it needs. Whatever situation you’re in, don’t be afraid to reach out, ask for help, and try to involve your pet in your therapy and recovery. Eventually, taking care of a life is a big responsibility and it should be an important part of your life, including your rehab and your self help and support. That can mean added complexity, but it will mean you get companionship, and your pet gets the care it needs.

Good luck with your recovery and with taking care of your pet.

Why Finding New Hobbies Is Important for Long-Term Recovery

a happy young woman found a new hobby painting

Why Finding New Hobbies Is Important for Long-Term Recovery

If you’re just getting started with recovery, it can be a lonely experience. The first thing that most of us realize is that we have lost our hobbies, the things we do with our spare time, and many of our friends. That can put you in a position where you don’t know what to do with your spare time and that can leave you feeling bored, lonely, and unfulfilled. Those and other reasons are part of why it’s important to find hobbies for your long-term recovery.

You’re probably accustomed to people pushing anything they can at you in recovery. Crafts, yoga, music, painting – pretty much anything. That’s often because picking up new hobbies can be immensely good for you, for your self-esteem, and for your recovery. At the same time, it’s also important for you to find hobbies and to move at your own pace, so you can invest as you’re ready to do so.

Hobbies Build Your Self-Esteem

Starting and sticking to a hobby can boost your self-esteem and your confidence. Both of those are an important part of long-term recovery. However, hobbies can help you to build those skills in a natural way, which will in turn influence your behavior, attitude towards recovery, and your approach towards your life. Hobbies give you something to work on for yourself, meaning you can start out being proud that you’re sticking to something that you’re not yet good at, learn to be good at things, and build your skills – increasing your confidence not just in your ability to do the hobby well but also your ability to learn new things, to get good at things you started out being bad at, and to understand how you progress at those new skills.

That’s even more true if you make that a social hobby, like pottery or dancing, where you’ll get into contact with others and you’ll be able to grow as a group.

Hobbies Build Your Self-Discipline

Hobbies can require significant self-discipline. That can mean emotional regulation and managing your emotions when you fail. It can mean discipline and practice and ensuring that you keep going, keep making classes, keep practicing. It can also mean sticking with a schedule and a program so that you do actually learn. All of that will help you to develop your sense of discipline, which will transfer to other parts of your life.

Being Comfortable with Yourself Alone

Being comfortable alone and by yourself also means knowing what to do with yourself. And, knowing what to do with yourself means having an idea of what you like, what you’re good at, and what makes you feel like you’re spending your time in a way that you want. Investing in hobbies means that you’ll be able to build those skills and figure out what is a good way for you to spend your time. For example, you might find out that you really like making things with your hands. You might find out that bullet journalling is a great way to help you feel in control of your agenda. You might also decide you like getting to move and exercise. Knowing what you can fill your time with when you’re alone will make you feel less alone because you’ll be more open to spending time with yourself. And, that’s important even if your preferred hobbies are something like watching TV or reading a book rather than making something. Knowing how to keep yourself company is important, and many people just out of rehab don’t know how to do that.

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Finding Enjoyment

Do you know how to have fun with your free time without drugs and alcohol? For most of us, long-term substance abuse means we’ve mostly forgotten. Sure you used to have hobbies and you might even want to go back to those, but remembering how to just sit down and have fun with something or with people without any substances can be hard. Building hobbies means you’ll get to find that again, to build up to it slowly, and to learn how to have fun with nothing but what your brain produces naturally. Of course, that might not happen right away. Many people actually experience emotional blunting in early recovery, where the brain is incapable of correctly regulating serotonin and dopamine, which means that it can feel like you feel nothing at all when you think you should be enjoying yourself. Hobbies help with that further by building up slowly – you’ll start out in positions of not being good at what you’re doing and the enjoyment will come with practice -and that’s perfect for learning how to enjoy yourself again.

Finding new Coping Mechanisms

Most people don’t think of a hobby as a coping mechanism. However, once you start a hobby, even something like knitting can help you to stay clean and sober. Why? It gives you something to fill your free time with without getting bored. It forces you to concentrate and do something with your hands, which can help you wait out cravings. It gives you something to de-stress with (although that will require a certain amount of fluency with the hobby). You won’t try to play guitar and feel less stressed a week into learning, btu long-term, it will give you something to turn to in order to reduce stress and to relax. And all of that can be a powerful addition to your recovery now and for the long-term.

Meeting New People and Friends

Having hobbies is an important part of meeting people, of finding people you have things in common with, and of sharing achievements and goals. People who share hobbies feel more emotionally fulfilled, more connected, and more in-touch with those around them. That’s especially true when you turn to physical hobbies like dance, yoga, martial arts, etc. However, you can share a lot with your class even with something simple like sharing a pottery class, learning to play a game together, meeting up with a group of people to play boardgames once a week, or learning cooking together. Of course, not every hobby should be with other people. At the same time, ensuring that at least some of what you do with your free time is social can be a great way to add that connection into your life – and that will be good for your long-term recovery. Most importantly, hobbies don’t have to be about other people in order to include them, because groups, classes, and meetups are all extremely common and you can just look for one and join it.

Moving Forward

New hobbies can be hard to start. It can be difficult to figure out what you like. And there’s a lot that goes into trying new things, figuring out what you want to stick to, and then doing so. At the same time, taking that time and investing in finding new hobbies can help you to improve your quality of life, improve your recovery, and give yourself coping mechanisms for the long-term. Not every hobby will be good for you or good for your recovery. However, finding something you can invest in, can stick to, and can work on improving at will improve your sense of self-esteem and confidence, your discipline, will broaden your social circle, will help you feel connected to yourself and others, and will give you a way to have fun, while reducing stress levels. And, all of that will be good for your recovery.

How Can I Handle College Parties and Stay Sober?

How Can I Handle College Parties and Stay Sober?

Going to college can often feel like everyone is focused on one thing – and that’s having a party. That’s very often not true, but especially in the media, college life is glamorized with parties, drugs, and alcohol front and center. But, if you’re trying to stay sober, want to take care of your health, or are in recovery from a substance use disorder, that’s the last thing you want. You might still want to take part in social life and parties – but you want to do so sober.

Can you? Of course you can. However, it might mean staying away from some parties. It will also mean planning, putting effort into taking care of yourself, and putting effort into learning where your limits are. The following tips will help you join college parties while staying sober.

Go to Sober Parties

A lot of people aren’t aware that there are plenty of sober parties and activities on most campuses. In fact, many people try to get through college sober – which means their events and parties will generally be alcohol free. If you’re not sure, ask around the campus and even ask your counselor. Some colleges actually sponsor alcohol free parties – just because getting students to socialize more with less alcohol is the goal of any college.

If you don’t have an existing sober party set up, feel free to plan one yourself. You can decide if it’s absolutely no alcohol or low alcohol. You can also organize with your sorority/fraternity, with the college itself, or with any other group you like. Having games, a movie marathon, dancing, or any other social activity is a great theme for a party – and it doesn’t need alcohol.

Make Sure You Have a Sober Buddy

If you’re going to parties where alcohol is being served, it’s a good idea to have someone to watch your back. Here, your best bet is to try going to campus support groups like AA, NA, Smart Recovery, or LifeRing. That will allow you to meet other sober people – however, you should be in recovery from alcohol abuse to join them.

If not, you might just want to ask around to find like-minded individuals who don’t want to drink.

Why do you want a sober buddy?

You’ll feel less alone
You’ll feel less peer pressure to drink
You’ll be able to talk to someone if you do experience cravings or want alcohol
You’ll have someone to help you say no and to hold you socially accountable

The best option is to bring someone to the party with you who also wants to stay sober. However, even having someone to text or call is better than nothing.

Know Your Motivations

If you want to stay sober, it’s for a reason. Keep those reasons in mind. In fact, if you’re struggling with saying no to alcohol or are afraid you’ll slip up, try writing down your motivations before you leave for the party. That will ensure they are clear in your mind and you’ll have a good idea of exactly what you’re saying not to alcohol for.

It doesn’t matter if those reasons are “I want to take care of my health”, or “I deserve to experience social life sober”, or “I’ve worked too hard to be sober to give it up now”. Writing out your motivations, including negative repercussions of alcohol can help. Your reasons can be as simple as you like.

They just have to remind you why you’re saying no.

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Know Your Limits

If you don’t trust yourself to say no to alcohol, don’t go to parties with alcohol. If you’re not sure if you can say no, try going only when you have support or someone to help you. Knowing your own limits is an important part of navigating life – and it’s even more important when you have to say no to things like alcohol to meet your goals.

That’s also important if you experience triggers, if you have cravings, or if you’re struggling with alcohol abuse or did in the past. What’s likely to trigger you? How can you avoid that? How can you manage that if you can’t avoid it? When are you most likely to experience cravings? How can you avoid that? How can you manage that when you can’t avoid it? What can you do if things get bad?

Understanding yourself is the first step to managing yourself. And, that means paying attention to when and how you react to things and using that information to make better decisions for yourself.

Take Care of Yourself

Getting enough sleep and eating your vegetables might not sound like the best way to avoid drinking, but it might be. Giving yourself a solid foundation of rest, exercise, and nutrition ensures that you feel your best. That also holds true with ensuring you have regular social interaction, time with friends, and time to relax and have fun. Giving yourself a stable routine with good self-care ensures that you are as mentally healthy as possible.

That puts you in the best possible position to take care of yourself. That includes not needing a release or getting drunk as much as you might if you go back and forth between not getting enough sleep and feeling bad because you’re not giving your body what it needs. It also means having more emotional stability, so you’re less likely to be invested in pleasure-seeking.

Good routines can be difficult to start and harder to maintain. But, taking care of yourself is an important part of staying sober. And, if you’re taking care of yourself in other ways by going to the gym four days a week, eating 80% healthy meals, and going to bed and waking up at about the same time every day – indulging in alcohol is going to feel a lot less like giving yourself a break and a lot more like self-sabotage, which will make it easier to say no.

Talk to People

If you’re at a college party, chances are, you know almost everyone there. That makes it relatively easy to talk to people, to say no, and to explain why you want to stay sober. Most people want to be respectful of the people around them. Most people want to be good friends. So, simply going “No, I don’t want any alcohol and here’s why” can do a lot for ensuring that people don’t offer you alcohol. It might not feel that way. You might feel like skipping out on alcohol makes you the sad looser of the bunch – but chances are, there are more people there who are also abstaining. Talking about things, making them public, and ensuring that the group knows that taking care of you means not offering you alcohol can do a lot for you getting to enjoy college parties without alcohol. And, if that’s not the case, you’re probably at the wrong parties.

If you’re struggling with alcohol abuse, you don’t have to tell that to strangers. But you should practice saying no, get comfortable with it, and learn how to exit a situation if you’re pressured instead of accepted.

College parties can involve a lot of alcohol. But, more and more often, there are also options for sober get-togethers. Hopefully, these tips help you to manage parties and to get through college without sacrificing your social life to stay sober.

How Are Religion and Spirituality in Recovery Different?

man in recovery attending church service

How Are Religion and Spirituality in Recovery Different?

If you’re in recovery and moving into self-help and recovery groups then you quickly start to encounter spirituality as a major part of recovery. For many, that sounds synonymous with “religion” but it’s very much not. In fact, many rehab programs and self-help groups incorporate religion and spirituality separately and as two distinct but important parts of treatment.

That’s important, especially if you’re don’t share the religious faith of your treatment program, aren’t sure about your religious faith, or don’t have one. You can still engage in spirituality and spiritual practices without religion. And, if you’re religious, you can use spirituality as a separate tool from your religion.

What is Spirituality?

Spirituality is the process of relating to the world around you in a meaningful way. It’s about getting in touch with your physical self and the physical world around you and being able to experience the world with wonder, curiosity, gratitude, humility, and love. It’s often also about the search for or acceptance of a lack of meaning in that life and finding answers or acceptance for the things that happen to you.

Spirituality can mean exploring:

Do things happen for a reason?
How can I live life in a fulfilling way?
Am I connected to the world around me and how?
What is happiness?

Who am I? What defines me?
Am I a good person? What is a good person?
Is there a higher power?
If there is a higher power, how does it affect my life?

Spirituality is about connecting to the world around you including people and places. It’s about living in a careful way, designed to reach the goals you want. And, its about learning to interpret the world around you in your own way.

That can be found in simply practicing some religions. It can also be found in thought, self-exploration, connecting with others, and learning to interpret the world and your own emotions.

What is Religion?

Religion is, in most cases, a communal set of beliefs, sometimes formalized into a formal religion, shared by a group of people. This means that a larger group of people share rituals, moral beliefs, and beliefs about the world.

There are also many, many different religions in the world. In the United States, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam. And, each of those divides into many further categories, like Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, etc.

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Religion is a formal system shared by a group of people and may include:

Moral practices and guidelines regarding behavior and personal conduct
Beliefs about the world and how it was created
Beliefs about right and wrong
Moral guidelines dictating responsibilities to the self and others

Those beliefs can create a significant amount of structure to your life depending on the religion. In other cases, it may provide very little day-to-day structure. For example, Islam religions typically dictate prayer five times per day, most Christian religions only dictate church attendance once per week.

Religion also often incorporates a significant amount of spirituality including connecting to the self, acknowledging a higher power than the self, and a search for meaning. For many people, the spirituality aspects of religion are the most important parts of it – which is often where the confusion between the two terms arises.

For example, Christianity helps to answer many of the defining questions of spirituality by defining what it means to be a good person, by laying down moral guidelines, and by defining a higher power and what he expects from you as an individual. That’s still spirituality, because you still have to interpret it and use it as a guideline for your life. So, in many ways, religion is a set of guidelines or a framework for practicing spirituality.

How Are They Different in Recovery?

Spirituality and religion have definite overlaps. However, they are used in very different ways in recovery.

Religion – Used as a formal and defined or structured activity where you meet up, pray, work together, and study. Religion can be thought of as learning to follow rules, to engage with others, and to learn or be accepted into ideas and concepts. If you’re in a religious program, you might be asked to join prayers, to talk to a higher power, and to take part in rituals with your group. Those rituals can be as simple as daily prayers or as complex as fasting or abstaining from eating red meat on certain days of the week. It can also help you with recovery by making you feel accepted, by giving you boundaries and rules, and by giving you a framework in which you know what you have to achieve to be a good person.

Spirituality – Spirituality in recovery is normally used as an informal framework in which you can explore yourself and the world around you. Sometimes that will mean exploring yourself and your interactions with others. It may also involve finding a higher power (including the universe), learning to explore yourself, and learning to connect with the world around you in a meaningful way. That can be a powerful part of your recovery because self-discovery and finding out what is important to you is an important part of setting goals, figuring out where you want to be, and deciding what is good for you.

Spirituality and religion are both very different. However, religion does include a lot of spirituality, although with a framework. Therefore, many treatment programs actually include both and separately. In addition, while you can often choose treatment programs that aren’t based on religion, you’ll almost never find one that doesn’t use spirituality. However, there are benefits to both and it may be a good idea for you to explore your options and decide what you want. Often, if you’re not practicing a religion, you won’t likely want to attend a treatment program based around that religion. However, you can attend a spirituality program with no concerns because it will not likely conflict with your religion.

Eventually, spirituality and religion are different tools. However, religions always include spirituality.

If you or your loved-one struggles from alcoholism or other substance abuse please contact us today and speak with one of our experienced and professional intake advisors about our detox, partial hospitalization, and residential treatment programs. 10 Acre Ranch also has specialty tracks like our pet friendly drug rehab and couples substance abuse treatment programs. We’re here to help you recover.