Graduating from rehab is an enormous milestone. Emotionally, you’re in a much better place. However, your recovery journey is far from finished, and you can expect some ups and downs in the coming months. The purpose of rehab isn’t to solve your emotional problems, but to give you the tools and know-hot to battle them on your own, as they come, for as long as you live–in a healthy, sober way.
Once you return home, you may feel taken aback by the real world, especially if you’re an emotional person to begin with. Outside the clinic, it seems, there’s little comfort, and little affirmation, in the face of stress. If you go on a date, and it goes badly, nobody is there to hold your hand. If you find yourself returning to old grudges and resentments, nobody is there to stay: Stop! Remember what we learned.
CLINICAL SERVICES
If that sounds like a cop-out–living sober simply by continuing treatment, on your own terms–so be it. It works. If your work life is eating you alive, you need to talk to somebody about it. Just because you’re out of rehabilitation doesn’t mean you’re completely rehabilitated, or that your issues have been alleviated to the point in which active, diligent care and caution are no longer necessary.
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
In both a professional setting and at home. You may not feel like you need it; and you may be right. What you do need is a safety-net. Even trapeze artists, skilled as they may be, always have a safety net beneath them. And let’s be real: A lot more can go awry within the human mind.
EMOTIONAL RECOVERY IS AN ACTIVE PROCESS.
It takes energy to forgive, to forget, to accept, or to remember in order to move on, or just to deal with daily life. If your treatment was a success, you now have a multitude of coping strategies at your disposal, the most important of which is to communicate your mind to others. All recovering addicts should attend either private or public therapy sessions or meetings on a regular basis, just to keep themselves in the recovery mindset.
Emotional healing is a self-serving process, but it doesn’t begin on its own. You have to learn how to heal in the first place. At Blueprints, we help recovering addicts move on with their lives.
